Housing starts dropped 4.5% in January from the previous month.
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One measure of new home construction fell in January, according to government data released Thursday.
The Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development released housing permits and starts data for January 2023 on Thursday morning. The two gauges represent different stages in a home’s construction timeline: Permits represent authorizations to build, while starts represent the beginning of construction on a home. Both are reported as seasonally-adjusted annual rates.
Housing starts dropped 4.5% in January from the previous month to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of about 1.31 million, falling short of the consensus estimate of 1.36 million. Both single-family and multifamily starts dropped from December 2022.
Permits, a gauge of future construction, rose 0.1% to a rate of about 1.34 million last month, according to the release, which included an updated methodology for permits. Economists had anticipated a rate of 1.35 million. While multifamily permits rose, single-family permits fell 1.8%.
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