The U.S. Commerce Department is reporting that housing starts gained for the first time in 8 months. The gain was 22.2 percent. This was the first increase since June.

"While welcome news, this gain only reflects a modest rebound from January, which was the worst month in history for new-home production," said National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Chief Economist David Crowe. "The majority of the gain was due to characteristic volatility on the multifamily side, while single-family housing starts were up just over one percent for the month."  

"Builders did pull a larger volume of single-family permits in February, suggesting a glimmer of hope for the prime home buying season, which is near at hand," said NAHB Chairman Joe Robson, a home builder from Tulsa, Okla. "That said, we realize there’s a need to be extremely cautious in terms of new building activity going forward, because there’s still quite a lot of inventory out there that needs to be absorbed as foreclosures continue to flood the market in many areas."  

CNNMoney reports that new construction (single family) was up as well in January. "New construction of buildings with 5 or more units increased surged 80% to 212,000 from 118,000 in January."

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Published: March 18, 2009

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