US housing starts drop 10.3% in February 2021

New residential construction in the U.S. showed a substantial decrease in the month of February 2021, according to a report released by the US Commerce Department on Wednesday, with housing starts extending the sharp pullback seen in the previous month.

The report said housing starts plummeted by 10.3% to an annual rate of 1.421 million in February 2021 after slumping by 5.1% to a revised rate of 1.584 million in January 2021.

Economists had expected housing starts to decrease by 0.9% to a rate of 1.565 million from the 1.580 million originally reported for the previous month.

With the steep drop, housing starts continued to give back ground after reaching a fourteen-year high of 1.670 million in December 2020.

The sharp decline in housing starts came as single-family starts tumbled by 8.5% to a rate of 1.040 million, while multi-family starts dove by 15.0% to a rate of 381,000.