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US housing starts plummet to a five-year low
Housing starts plummeted to a five-year low in April as builders paused activity amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Starts on both multifamily and single-family units dropped 30%, the biggest monthly decline in six decades of records, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 891,000 in April, the lowest level since February 2015, the Commerce Department said in a report on Tuesday. The number of single-family houses started by builders fell 25% to an annual pace of 650,000 units in April. Multifamily starts fell 40.5% to a rate of 241,000 units. “Housing starts were horrible in April, but what wasn’t?” Wells Fargo ... (full story)