Housing Starts Fall

Single-family housing starts fell 5.2% in January as builders continued to retrench, and construction activity has plummeted 38.5% over the past 10 months. The U.S. Census Bureau reported that single-family housing starts declined from a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 784,000 in December to 743,000 in January. The bureau revised December starts downward by 10,000 units. The National Association of Home Builders projects that single-family starts will total 769,000 this year, down from 1.04 million in 2007. The Census Bureau also reported that multifamily starts jumped 17.6% to 247,000 units in January. The Census Bureau, an agency of the Commerce Department, can be found online at http://www.doc.gov.