Single Family Starts Up 22% Year-over-year in January; Multi-Family Starts Down Sharply

Housing Starts Decreased to 1.331 million Annual Rate in January

From the Census Bureau: Permits, Starts and Completions

Housing Starts:
Privately‐owned housing starts in January were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,331,000. This is 14.8 percent below the revised December estimate of 1,562,000 and is 0.7 percent below the January 2023 rate of 1,340,000. Single‐family housing starts in January were at a rate of 1,004,000; this is 4.7 percent below the revised December figure of 1,054,000. The January rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 314,000.

Building Permits:
Privately‐owned housing units authorized by building permits in January were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,470,000. This is 1.5 percent below the revised December rate of 1,493,000, but is 8.6 percent above the January 2023 rate of 1,354,000. Single‐family authorizations in January were at a rate of 1,015,000; this is 1.6 percent above the revised December figure of 999,000. Authorizations of units in buildings with five units or more were at a rate of 405,000 in January.
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 January compared to December.   Multi-family starts were down 36.8% year-over-year in January. Single-family starts (red) decreased in January and were up 22.0% 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 January were below expectations, however, starts in November and December were revised up sharply, combined.

Note that permits held up better than starts in January, and housing starts were probably impacted by the severe weather last month.

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

Total starts were down 0.7% in January compared to January 2023. 

Starts were down year-over-year for 17 of the last 21 months, although starts were up year-over-year in 4 of the last 9 months.

Multi-Family Housing Units Under Construction has Peaked

The fourth graph shows housing starts under construction, Seasonally Adjusted (SA).