Housing Starts Fall Sharply in January on Soft Multifamily Activity

Starts fell nearly 15% on a month-over-month basis in January, while permit activity and completions also trended lower.

Privately owned housing starts fell 14.8% on a month-over-month basis to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,331,000 in January, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The estimate is 0.7% below the January 2023 rate.

Single-family starts declined 4.7% to a rate of 1,004,000 in January, according to the report.

“The pullback in the multifamily market is the story behind today’s weak housing starts report,” says Zonda chief economist Ali Wolf. “There were just 314,000 [seasonally adjusted annual rate] multifamily housing starts in January. Besides the brief drop in 2020, multifamily starts are at the lowest level since January 2019 and well below the 506,000 seen last January.”