April Housing Starts

Updated: 21-May-26 09:25 ET

Highlights

• Housing starts decreased 2.8% month-over-month in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.465 million units ( consensus: 1.420 million).
• Building permits rose 5.8% month-over-month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.442 million ( consensus: 1.380 million).

Key Factors

• The change in single-unit starts by region: Northeast (-18.8%); Midwest (-5.5%); South (-2.7%); and West (-22.9%).
• The change in single-unit permits by region: Northeast (-1.9%); Midwest (-3.2%); South (-1.9%); and West (-4.3%).
• Multi-unit starts increased 10.3% month-over-month, while multi-unit permits increased 21.8%.
• The number of units under construction at the end of the period increased 0.2% month-over-month at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.275 million, with single-unit dwellings also up 0.2% to 588,000.

Big Picture

• The key takeaway from the report is that there was broad-based weakness across all regions for both single-family starts and single-family building permits, underscoring the headwind posed for builders by rising costs for financing, materials, and labor.