Compared with March, April's privately owned housing starts were down 16.5 percent to 853,000, and single-family starts were down 2.1 percent to 610,000, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Both figures showed year-over-year improvement, the total increasing 13.1 percent and single-family alone increasing 20.8 percent. Starts for housing with five units or more dropped 37.8 percent from March and 2.5 percent from April 2012 after what the National Association of Home Builders called an unsustainably high level of production.
Total housing completions in April were at an adjusted rate of 689,000, down 14.3 percent from March. Single-family completions were down 9.8 percent to 536,000. The number of total housing units authorized by building permits were at a rate of 1,017,000, which is 14.3 above the revised rate in March. Single-family authorizations were up 3 percent from March to 617,000.
"The big decline in April housing production was mostly on the multifamily side, which recorded a similarly dramatic increase in the previous month," said NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe in a statement. "Meanwhile, overall permits for new construction surpassed the million-unit mark and the number of yet-to-be-used permits rose in April, which is a good indicator that the dip in building activity was likely a temporary pause due partly to unseasonably poor weather conditions."
