April Housing Starts just came in 458,000 on an annualized basis, which represents a drop of 12.8%.  The March data was also revised from 510,000 to 525,000 annualized.  What is interesting is the multi-family housing projects was where the big decrease was.

For single family homes, the starts were up 2.8% to 368,000 annualized.  The drop was monstrous in the multi-family projects.  That came to 78,000, a drop of roughly 42.2%.

The Northeast saw the biggest drop at -30.6% and the West saw the biggest gain of 42.5%.

This number the weakest on record, but there is a discrepancy here as the difference between single-family and multi-family starts is massive.

JON C. OGG
May 19, 2009