US March housing starts 1.502m vs 1.400m expected

Prior was 1.487m Single-family: 1.032 million (↑ 9.7% from February) Multi-family (5+ units): 446,000 Building permits 1.372m vs 1.390m exp This is a 10.8% m/m jump and I suspect that weather or one-time quirks had a strong hand in that. The tell is that permits fell in the month, indicating that it won't continuing. In addition, the rise in borrowing rates since the war certainly isn't going to boost any home buying. For background, the New Residential Construction report, published jointly by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, is the most widely watched gauge of U.S. homebuilding activity. Released monthly at 8:30 a.m. ET (typically around the 17th business day of the month, with a roughly six-week lag), it covers three series: building permits, housing starts, and housing completions. A "start" is recorded when excavation begins for a building's footings or foundation. Markets focus particularly on the seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of total starts and the single-family component, with multifamily (five-plus units) tracked separately given its higher volatility. Permits are treated as a leading indicator of future starts, while completions feed into housing supply estimates. The data are reported with notably wide confidence intervals — often ±10–15 percentage points on monthly changes — so analysts focus on trends rather than single readings, and on the regional breakdown across the four Census regions. Both the February and March 2026 releases — originally scheduled for March 17 and April 17 — have been bundled and rescheduled to April 29 as part of the Census Bureau's adjusted indicator calendar following the recent lapse in federal funding, leaving January as the most recent confirmed reading. The January 2026 report, released March 12, showed total housing starts at a SAAR of 1.487 million, up 7.2% from December's revised 1.387 million and 9.5% above the January 2025 pace. The strength was driven by multifamily, with five-plus-unit starts at 524,000, while single-family starts slipped 2.8% to 935,000. Permits were softer — total authorizations fell 5.4% to 1.376 million, with single-family down 0.9% to 873,000 — pointing to less momentum in the pipeline. Completions rose 4.8% to 1.527 million but remained 7.5% below year-ago levels. In other news, the March wholesale inventories report was also released: Wholesale inventories +1.4% vs +0.2% prior Retail inventories ex-autos +0.5% vs +0.4%' The wholesale inventory report is a nice tailwind for GDP this week. This article was written by Adam Button at investinglive.com.