By Dees Stribling | MHN Online
U.S. housing starts in March came in at an annualized rate of 946,000 units, according to the Census Bureau on Wednesday. This is 2.8 percent higher than the revised February estimate of 920,000 units, but 5.9 percent lower than the March 2013 rate of 1.01 million units.
At an annualized 635,000 units, single-family housing starts were the driver of the monthly increase, registering a 6 percent increase compared with February. The March rate for buildings with five units or more was 292,000 units, or a drop of 6.1 percent from the previous month. Multifamily starts tend to be jumpy month-over-month.
For the first quarter of 2014, there were a total of 203,000 housing starts nationwide. At that pace, starts for the year would be quite weak, but there’s some indication that at least some of the sluggishness in housing starts for the quarter was weather-related, and thus transient. Higher prices and lower inventories are also probably a factor in keeping starts low.
