A Healthy Housing Industry Emerging: Single-Family Vs. Multi-Family Housing Construction 2007 to 2017 (January)
July 14,
2017 by HFBusiness Staff in General 
This is the third factoid in a series of four factoids detailing the continued growth of the post-recession Housing Industry. After years of fighting back from the housing bubble pop, the Housing Industry is finally on the mend and appears to be getting healthier by the year. Although still shy of 2007 pre-recession levels, housing appears to be catching up fast despite a couple of stumbles last year.
Despite the growth in new and existing home sales last year as shown in Factoids 1 and 2, New Housing Construction, specifically, multi-unit apartment construction fell considerably. After solid gains since 2011, combined growth of single and multi-unit construction went negative last year – falling 0.5 percent to 1.17 million units. Due to booming housing starts in January of this year, 2017 began 9.6 percent higher with a seasonally annualized average of 1.29 million units.
Single-family construction has maintained its upward trajectory since the Great Recession. However, 2016 single family units totaling 747,000 are still 23.1 percent below peak 2007 levels. Meanwhile multi-family construction at 392,000 units in 2016 are well below the 451,000 in 2015.
The flat growth in new construction was not a result of declining construction of single-family units. Growth has continued unstopped in recent years – increasing 7.5 percent from 2015 to 2016. Up 8.1 percent annualized, the first month of 2017 builds on the momentum.
The slowdown of total new housing construction came solely on the shoulders of multi-family apartments and condominiums where construction fell by 13 percent in 2016. On a positive note, authorized permits for the first month of 2017 are up 13.7 percent.