Housing Starts Decline in December

Housing starts dropped 4.1% in December, the Commerce Department said Thursday.

Starts dropped to an annual rate of 657,000 units, from 685,000 in November.

The December rate was lower than economists’ forecasts of a 680,000 rate, Bloomberg reported.

Building permits, an indicator of future construction, slipped 0.1% to 679,000.

Single-family home starts, which account for about 85% of the total, rose 4.4% to a 470,000 rate, the highest since April 2010.

Work on multifamily units, which is often more volatile, dropped 20.4% to an annual rate of 187,000.

Starts declined in three of four national regions, led by a 41.2% drop in the Northeast and a 17.6% decrease in the West.