By Floyd Norris | The New York Times
After the housing market collapse, there is a construction boom — in apartments.
Over the past 12 months, the Census Bureau reported this week, builders have broken ground for buildings containing 332,000 apartments. That is more than during any comparable period since 1989. The figures include apartment buildings with at least five units.
By contrast, building of single-family homes has partly recovered, but only slowly, and the same is true for buildings containing two to four units.
The number of single-family homes started over the most recent 12 months was more than 60 percent below the level of 2005, when the housing boom was at its peak. But the number of apartment starts is now 7 percent higher than it was in 2005.
