The number of housing starts ticked up in February despite pressure from high mortgage rates, good news for a market that has seen turmoil the past few years.
Housing starts, the change in the number of new residential buildings that began construction, rose 10.7% from January to this past month, according to a Tuesday morning report from the Census Bureau.
They are now at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.52 million. From February 2023, they increased by 5.9%.
The rate of new permits to build, which are seen as a proxy for future construction, was 2.4% above the rate in February of last year.
As of this week, the average rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage was 7.11%, according to Mortgage News Daily, which tracks daily changes in rates. That is down from a recent peak of above 8%, although is still far higher than in the years
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