Single Family Starts Up 18% Year-over-year in April; Multi-Family Starts Down Sharply YoY

Housing Starts Increased to 1.360 million Annual Rate in April

From the Census Bureau: Permits, Starts and Completions

Housing Starts:
Privately‐owned housing starts in April were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,360,000. This is 5.7 percent above the revised March estimate of 1,287,000, but is 0.6 percent below the April 2023 rate of 1,368,000. Single‐family housing starts in April were at a rate of 1,031,000; this is 0.4 percent below the revised March figure of 1,035,000. The April rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 322,000.

Building Permits:
Privately‐owned housing units authorized by building permits in April were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,440,000. This is 3.0 percent below the revised March rate of 1,485,000 and is 2.0 percent below the April 2023 rate of 1,470,000. Single‐family authorizations in April were at a rate of 976,000; this is 0.8 percent below the revised March figure of 984,000. Authorizations of units in buildings with five units or more were at a rate of 408,000 in April.
emphasis added

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

Multi-family starts (blue, 2+ units) increased in April compared to March.   Multi-family starts were down 33.1% year-over-year. Single-family starts (red) decreased slightly in April and were up 17.7% 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 has bounced back from the bottom.

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 April were above expectations, however, starts in February and March were revised down.

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