There's still no forward momentum behind housing sector activity. Housing starts fell 10.6% to 523,000 units last month after a revised 12.9% March gain to 585,000, initially reported as 549,000. The latest figure was the lowest in exactly two years and compared to Consensus expectations for 570,000 starts.

Weakness in building was most significant in the single-family area where starts fell 5.1% to the lowest level since April 2009. More pronounced was the 24.1% drop (+6.6% y/y) in multi-family starts but these still were more-than double the October 2009 low. Starts of 2-to-4 units building jumped by more than one-third m/m (15.4% y/y) but starts of larger buildings with 5 or more units fell by more than one-quarter (+5.6% y/y).

Building permits also fell a sharp 4.0% (12.8% y/y). Single-family permits fell 1.8% (-18.6% y/y) while multi-family permits were off 8.8% (+4.4% y/y).

The housing starts figures can be found in Haver's USECON database. The expectations figure is contained in the AS1REPNA database.