There are some exciting stories to tell about new home building in the U.S. and Canada at the beginning of this year. Let’s cover the U.S. first.
Monthly average U.S. housing starts (seasonally adjusted and annualized/SAAR) in 2020 were 1.396 million units, +7.8% versus 2019’s figure of 1.295 million.
In January of the current year, starts rose some more, to 1.580 million units, +13.2% versus 2020’s 12-month average.
The monthly average for single-family starts in 2020 was a conveniently memorable one million units, +12.0% to 2019’s 893,000. In January 2021, there was a further bump to 1,162,000 units, +16.2% versus last year’s monthly average.
