Overall housing starts increased 11.2% in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.50 million units, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Census Bureau said Tuesday. With single-family starts reaching their highest annualized rate in a year, the multifamily sector increased 10.7% to an annualized 393,000 pace.
“Despite elevated interest rates and policy uncertainty, ongoing lean levels of single-family existing home inventory helped to boost single-family production in February,” said Jing Fu, senior director, forecasting and analysis at the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). The association’s latest survey shows builders remain concerned about high construction costs, partly due to tariffs on building materials.
She continued, “NAHB forecasts that single-family starts will remain effectively flat in 2025 as prospects of a better regulatory business climate are offset by uncertainty on the tariff front. Meanwhile, multifamily construction is expected to remain soft in early 2025 due to challenging financing conditions, before stabilizing in the second half of the year.”
Government data also showed that multifamily permits declined at a slightly lower rate than those for single-family homes and the number of apartments under construction rose 0.3% for the month. However, it was down 20% from a year ago.
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