First time ever more "Built-for-Rent" Units started Quarterly than "Built-for-Sale"

Quarterly Housing Starts and Completions by Purpose and Design

Along with the monthly housing starts report for January last week, the Census Bureau released Housing Units Started by Purpose and Design through Q4 2022.

This graph shows the NSA quarterly intent for four start categories since 1975: single family built for sale, owner built (includes contractor built for owner), starts built for rent, and multi-family built for sale.

Single family starts built for sale (red) were down 34% in Q4 2022 compared to Q4 2021. And owner built starts (orange) were down 10% year-over-year. Multi-family built for sale decreased and are still low.

The 'units built for rent' (blue) and were up 15% in Q4 2022 compared to Q4 2021. For the first time since this series started in 1974, there were more units built-for-rent started in Q4 2022 than single family units built-for-sale started.