Housing starts tumbled 10.8% in March, a distress sign that economists say means housing construction will not make a big turnaround soon.
Construction of new homes and apartments fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 510,000 units, the Commerce Department said Thursday. That was the second-lowest rate in the department’s records, which go back 50 years.
The decline was more than many economists had expected and took off some of the glow from a reported increase in February. The February figure was also revised downward in Thursday’s report.
Applications for building permits fell 9% in March to a 513,000 seasonally adjusted annual pace, the lowest on record.
Michael Larson, a housing analyst at Weiss Research, says the numbers are being strongly affected by the starts in the multifamily home segment, whose numbers tend to swing widely.
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