April New Housing Starts Drop 10.6%

Housing starts fell 10.6% in April, the Commerce Department said Tuesday.

Starts dropped to an annual rate of 523,000 units from a revised 585,000 starts in March that was higher than originally reported, Commerce said.

The April level was lower than economists’ projections of a 569,000 annual rate, Bloomberg reported.

Building permits, an indicator of future construction, dropped 4% to 551,000. They were projected to rise 0.9%, Bloomberg said.

Single-family home starts, which account for about 85% of the total, increased 5.1% to a 394,000 rate. Work on multifamily units, which is often more volatile, plunged 24% to a 129,000 rate.

Starts dropped in two of four national regions, led by a 23% fall in the South and a 4.8% decline in the Northeast. The Midwest and the West increased 16% and 3.7%, respectively.