Housing starts ticked up in February

Single-family starts last month hit a rate of 1.10 million, a month-over-month increase of 11.4%. Multi-family starts reached 370,000, census data shows.

“While solid demand and a lack of existing inventory provided a boost to single-family production in February, our latest builder survey shows that builders remain concerned about challenging housing affordability conditions, most notably elevated financing and construction costs as well as tariffs on key building materials,” Buddy Hughes, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), said in a statement.

Overall permits fell 1.2% to a 1.46-million-unit annualized rate in February and were down 6.8% compared to a year ago. Single-family permits decreased 0.2% to a 992,000-unit rate and were down 3.4% compared to the previous year. Multifamily permits slipped 3.1% to a 464,000 pace.

Jing Fu, NAHB senior director, forecasting and analysis said the organization expects single-family starts to remain effectively flat in 2025 “as prospects of a better regulatory business climate are offset by uncertainty on the tariff front.”

“Meanwhile, multi-family construction is expected to remain soft in early 2025 due to challenging financing conditions, before stabilizing in the second half of the year,” Fu said in a statement.