New-home construction in the United States fell 12.8 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 458,000 units, the lowest pace on record, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday.
The April fall defied economists who had expected home construction to post a modest increase last month and provided fresh evidence that the housing slump, which was a major factor triggering the current recession, has not ended.
Housing construction in March was revised to 525,000 units, higher than the 510,000 initially estimated.
For April, single-family housing starts rose by 2.8 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 368,000 units. Multi-family housing starts, however, plunged 42.2 percent to an annual rate of 78,000 units.
By region, the biggest drop was a 30.6 percent decrease in activity in the Northeast, followed by declines of 21.4 percent in the Midwest and 21.1 percent in the South. Home construction surged 42.5 percent in the West.
Permits for future groundbreaking, an indicator of builder confidence, also fell 3.3 percent last month to an annual rate of 511,000 units.
Dragged by the severe housing slump and a persisting credit crisis, the U.S. economy has been in recession since December 2007. In the final quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of this year, the economy contracted at an annual rate of 6.3 percent and 6.1 percent respectively.
Source: Xinhua
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