Single Family Starts Down Slightly Year-over-year in May; Multi-Family Starts Down 50%

Housing Starts Decreased to 1.277 million Annual Rate in May

From the Census Bureau: Permits, Starts and Completions

Housing Starts:
Privately‐owned housing starts in May were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,277,000. This is 5.5 percent below the revised April estimate of 1,352,000 and is 19.3 percent below the May 2023 rate of 1,583,000. Single‐family housing starts in May were at a rate of 982,000; this is 5.2 percent below the revised April figure of 1,036,000. The May rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 278,000.

Building Permits:
Privately‐owned housing units authorized by building permits in May were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,386,000. This is 3.8 percent below the revised April rate of 1,440,000 and is 9.5 percent below the May 2023 rate of 1,532,000. Single‐family authorizations in May were at a rate of 949,000; this is 2.9 percent below the revised April figure of 977,000. Authorizations of units in buildings with five units or more were at a rate of 382,000 in May.
emphasis added

The first graph shows single and multi-family housing starts since 2000 (including housing bubble).

Multi-family starts (blue, 2+ units) decreased in May compared to April. Multi-family starts were down 49.5% year-over-year. Single-family starts (red) decreased in May and were down 1.7% year-over-year.

Note that the weakness in 2022 and early 2023 had been in single family starts (red), however the weakness has moved to multi-family now while single family recovered from the bottom - although single family starts have declined recently.

The second graph shows single and multi-family starts since 1968. This shows the huge collapse following the housing bubble, and then the eventual recovery - and the recent collapse and now recovery in single-family starts.

Total housing starts in May were below expectations, however, starts in March and April were revised up slightly, combined.

The third graph shows the month-to-month comparison for total starts between 2023 (blue) and 2024 (red).