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Single-Family Home Starts Hit a Record High in November

The seasonally adjusted annual pace of housing starts increased 4.5% last month to 2.070 million units.

“We are closing in on an incredibly strong year,” said NAHB President Kent Conine. “Builders have been striving to meet robust demand for homes, and the market still has a lot of strength as we approach year-end.”

Low mortgage interest rates and solid increases in home values have been fueling demand for both single-family homes and condominiums in multifamily buildings, noted NAHB Chief Economist David Seiders.

Single-family starts reached their highest pace on record in November, climbing 3.3% from the prior month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.695 million units. This was 20.8% above the pace of home construction a year earlier.

Multifamily housing starts increased 10.6% over October to a seasonally adjusted rate of 375,000 units and they were 5% above the pace of construction in November of last year.

Housing starts in November rose 15.7% in the Northeast, 10.4% in the West and 8% in the Midwest. They declined 2.2% in the South, where production was still 10.4% above the pace of November 2002.

With the issuance of building permits down in all regions of the country in November, housing starts could be poised for some decline this month, Seiders said, but it is now a virtual certainty that total housing production this year will reach the highest level since 1978.

NAHB is forecasting 1.84 million housing starts for 2003.

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