New Home Construction Up Sharply in February

The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development recently released their figures for privately-owned housing starts in February and with this announcement comes encouraging news: Housing starts were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 583,000 which equates to a 22.2 percent increase from January 2009. This is still 47.3 percent below the revised February 2008 rate of 1,107,000 so housing starts are no where near where they once where. But for those who are the glass half-full type this increase over last month could signal a "bottoming-out" or initial indications that the credit freeze is beginning to thaw.