Housing starts - single family leading the way as multi family catches its breath.

Housing starts in February, as the weather thawed, totaled 1.521mm, up from 1.374mm and that was 80k more than anticipated. Single family made up 1.129mm of this and that is the most since April 2022. The multi family side saw starts totaling 392k, up by 30k m/o/m but continues to trend below 400k and this compares with the 5 yr average of 460k. It happened to average 547k specifically in 2022 as all the easy money 2020 and 2021 lending led to that construction jump.

On the permit side, single family rose by 10k m/o/m and that is also the highest in almost 2 years. Multi family permits were up by 19k m/o/m to 487k but after falling by 26k last month. The 5 yr permit average is 578k.