Housing Market Shows Slight Rebound !!!

cdloanmod

Even as new home sales continue to plummet, a number of contractors have braved the crisis and push through with their building projects. Reports showed a slight increase in building permits and housing starts last month, both in contrast with the expected decline for the first quarter.

The U.S. Department of Commerce reported February’s housing starts at 583K, an increase of 22.2% on a month-over-month basis. The figure was expected to drop to about 450K, and readings from the previous months were revised from 466K to 477K.

According to the report, about 80% of the housing starts came from single-family homes, which rose by 1.1% from 357K to 353K. The rise ended a housing slump that had been running for the past 21 months.

Multiple-family homes, while not as numerous as single-family units, showed a more significant increase. Housing starts rose from 124K to 226K, or a leap of about 45%.

Building permits also increased to 547K, up by a small margin from 531K last month and exceeding the 500K decline predicted in previous papers. Permits for single-family homes were up by 11% (336K to 373K), while multiple-family permits went down at about the same rate.

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