The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development reported Tuesday morning that new housing starts in March rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 926,000, an increase of 3% from the upwardly revised February rate of 908,000 and a decrease of 2.5% compared with the March 2014 rate of 950,000. The consensus estimate from a survey of economists expected a rate of around 1.04 million.

The revision to the February rate totaled 11,000 additional new housing starts. Even at the revised total, housing starts fell 16% year-over-year in February.

The seasonally adjusted rate of new building permits fell in March to 1.039 million, down 5.7% from the upwardly revised February rate of 1.102 million and 2.9% above the March 2014 rate of 1.010 million. The consensus estimate called for 1.085 million new permits.

Single-family housing starts rose to an annualized rate of 618,000 in March, up 4.4% from the downwardly revised February rate of 592,000.

Permits for new single-family homes rose 2.1% in March, to an adjusted annual rate of 636,000 from an upwardly revised total of 623,000 in January.

Multi-family starts for buildings with five or more units, a more volatile number than single-family starts, fell by 4.7% year-over-year in March and rose 4.4% compared with February.

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