What the data says: The overall privately-owned housing units started to increase 5.7% YoY and 21.7% MoM to reach 1.6 million units. However, one unit starts plunging by 6.6% YoY. A total of 1.5 million privately-owned housing units were completed in May. Of the overall completion figures, 493,000 units were projects with five or more units, increasing by 23.9%. Single-family and multifamily permits dropped 11.9% and 13.2%, respectively. Relevance: Apartment starts are increasing at a time when there are tighter lending restrictions and higher construction costs. Experts attributed the increase to developers kicking off legacy projects for which they had already secured financing. |
What happened: According to data released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Census Bureau, multifamily housing starts for projects with five or more units surged 40% YoY to reach a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 624,000.