Home Starts Regain Some Ground in February

U.S. housing starts in February turned upward for the first time in eight months, posting a 22.2% gain that was primarily due to a big jump in often-volatile multifamily construction, according to numbers released by the U.S. Commerce Department on March 17.

"While welcome news, this gain only reflects a modest rebound from January, which was the worst month in history for new-home production," said NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe. "The majority of the gain was due to characteristic volatility on the multifamily side, while single-family housing starts were up just over 1% for the month."

"Builders did pull a larger volume of single-family permits in February, suggesting a glimmer of hope for the prime home buying season, which is near at hand," said NAHB Chairman Joe Robson. "That said, we realize there's a need to be extremely cautious in terms of new building activity going forward, because there's still quite a lot of inventory out there that needs to be absorbed as foreclosures continue to flood the market in many areas."

Total U.S. housing starts rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 583,000 units in February — reflecting an 82.3% surge in new multifamily production to a yearly pace of 226,000 units and a 1.1% rise to an annual rate of 357,000 single-family starts.

Regionally, the only area of the country losing ground in February was the West, whose total housing starts skidded 24.6%.

The Northeast was up 88.6%, the largest regional gain, with a rebound that was just about equal to its decline the previous month. The Midwest posted a 58.5% gain following a deep plunge in January, and the South climbed 30.2%. January-February averages were well below the monthly averages for the final quarter of 2008 in all regions of the country.

Building permits, which can be an indicator of future building activity, rose 3% overall to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 547,000 units in February. Single-family permits rose 11% to 373,000 units, while multifamily declined 10.8% to 174,000 units.

By region, building permits registered a 27.6% gain in the Northeast, no change in the Midwest, a nearly 6% hike in the South and a 13.6% slump in the West in February.

Beach to Bay Real Estate Center is a full service real estate brokerage servicing buyers, sellers and renters at the Delaware beach areas. We handle all forms of real estate, including residential, commercial, and lots and land, in addition to bank owned, short sales and auctioned properties and representation; mortgage needs including refinances, new home purchases, second homes, first time homebuyer programs and reverse mortgages; maintain professional relationships with local settlement attorneys, insurance companies, contractors, and inspection companies; and are affiliated with a preservation and restoration company. Beach to Bay services all of Sussex County, and southern Kent County, with a strong focus on the beach resort areas of Rehoboth Beach (19971), Lewes (19958), Bethany Beach (19930), Dewey Beach (19971), Milton (19968), Millsboro (19966) and more.