Dive Brief:

• There was a time – in 1993 – when a "housing" start had an 87% chance of meaning a start on a single-family home, but that market has changed, and about a third of the housing units started in 2013 was an apartment.
• Trulia, the real estate data-crunching firm, says builders are counting on more young people leaving their parents' homes as the economy improves this year, but that does not mean they are expecting more home buyers.
• Jordan Rappaport, who is an economist working at the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank, predicts that single-family home construction will settle at about 1.3 million a year by 2020, and multifamily units will be constructed at almost half that rate – about 550,000 annually.

Dive Insight:

There is no mystery or cultural shift behind the faster growth of rental units compared to single-family homes. There is an economic explanation that combines tough credit standards since the housing collapse and new job-holders who are focused on paying off student debt, not taking on mortgages. The construction industry is also hustling to make up for relative underproduction of apartments from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s.