### Multifamily Construction Starts Rise in February but Decline Year-Over-Year
Overall housing starts saw an 11.2% increase in February, reaching a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.50 million units, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Census Bureau. Notably, single-family starts reached their highest annualized rate in a year, while multifamily construction rose 10.7% to an annualized pace of 393,000 units.
“Despite elevated interest rates and policy uncertainty, ongoing lean levels of single-family existing home inventory helped to boost single-family production in February,” said Jing Fu, senior director of forecasting and analysis at the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). However, Fu noted that builders remain concerned about high construction costs, exacerbated by tariffs on building materials.
Looking ahead, Fu predicted that single-family starts will remain relatively flat in 2025. “Prospects of a better regulatory business climate are offset by uncertainty on the tariff front,” she explained. “Meanwhile, multifamily construction is expected to remain soft in early 2025 due to challenging financing conditions, before stabilizing in the second half of the year.”
Government data also revealed that while multifamily permits declined at a slightly slower rate than those for single-family homes, the number of apartments under construction rose 0.3% for the month. However, that figure remains down 20% from a year ago.
