February Single Family Starts Drop 41%

Starts for single family homes in February dipped 40.5% from the year before to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 707,000 units, according to the Census Bureau. That's the lowest rate since 1991. Starts for all homes hit an annual rate of 1.07 million units last month, down 28.4% from February, 2007.
Starts to date hit 98,300 units at the end of February, down 26.9% from the same period of 2007, and single family starts totalled 98,300 units over that span, a 37.9% drop.
The seasonally adjusted annualized rate for building permits in February was 978,000 units, down 36.5% from the same month last year, while the single family permit rate for the month plummeted 41.9% to just 639,000 units per year.