Housing starts increased 9.8% in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.45 million, the U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced.
Compared with February 2022, however, housing starts were down 18.4%.
“Builders continue to grapple with increased market uncertainty due to ongoing building material supply bottlenecks, volatile mortgage rates and increased jitters in the banking sector,” stated Alicia Huey, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). “At the same time, builder sentiment has been edging higher in the early part of 2023 as a significant amount of housing demand exists on the sidelines and resale inventory is limited.”
Regionally, compared with January, housing starts increased 70.3% in the Midwest, 16.8% in the West and 2.2% in the South, while decreasing 16.5% in the Northeast.
Building permits increased 13.8% month-over-month, but were 17.9% below the February 2022 rate.
Housing completions were up 12.2% from January and up 12.8% compared with February 2022.
