Dive Brief:
- As temperatures began to rise after a long, cold winter, increases in the Northeast and Midwest of 30.7% and 65.5%, respectively in housing starts created a nationwide gain.
- Nationally, starts on single-family homes were up a net 2.8%, coming from a 6% increase in single-family houses and a 6.1% fall in multifamily buildings.
- The overall increase was above an upwardly revised February number, and March stood at an annual rate of 946,000 as seasonally adjusted.
Dive Insight:
The huge increases on the colder parts of the nation more than overcame reductions in the South and the West. The South was down 9.1% for combined single-family and multifamily starts, and the West was down 4.5%. Building permits were down nationally by 2.4%, but the Northeast and Midwest regions again had big gains.