Privately owned housing starts plummeted 30.2% in April, the largest percentage decline since the government began tracking housing starts in 1959, Reuters reports.
At an adjusted rate of 891,000, April’s housing start rate is the lowest since 2015. Compared with April 2019, housing starts declined 29.7%.
Month-over-month, the Northeast had the largest housing start decline, falling 43.6%; the West followed close behind with a decline of 43.4%. The South and Midwest had declines of 26.0% and 14.9%, respectively.
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) noted that while housing starts were down, they were somewhat better than forecast and are expected to improve as the economy reopens.
“Housing was showing signs of momentum before the pandemic and is poised to lead the economic recovery as virus mitigation efforts take hold and more states take gradual steps to reopen,” NAHB Chairman Dean Mon said in a statement.
Building permits in April declined 20.8% compared with March (down 19.2% year-over-year) housing completions slowed to an adjusted rate of 1.2 million, an 8.1% decline from March and an 11.8% decline compared with April 2019.
The full Census Bureau report can be found here.
