April Housing Starts Up 2.6% After March Upward Revision May 22, 2012

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Nationwide housing production in the United States in was up 2.6% - from an upwardly revised pace in March - to reach a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 717,000 units in April 2012, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures. Single-family homes were up 2.3%, to a seasonally adjusted, annual rate of 492,000 units. Multifamily was up 3.2% to a 225,000-unit rate.

"April's increase in housing production comes on top of strong upward revisions to the previous month's data, and is an encouraging sign that we are returning to a gradual, upward trend that should continue in the year ahead as builders respond to improving demand for new homes in certain markets," said Barry Rutenberg, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and a home builder from Gainesville, FL. "Unfortunately, overly restrictive lending conditions for builders and buyers are slowing the pace of this trend considerably."

"While still less than half the pace of what we would expect in a fully healthy market, the rate of housing production in April was very solid for this point of the recovery and in keeping with the findings of our latest builder surveys that have registered modest improvements in buyer traffic and near-term sales expectations for single-family homes," said NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe.

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