US housing starts fall in notably cold, snowy January

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Cold winter weather appears to have cut into homebuilding in the Midwest and Northeast, causing the pace of construction to tumble in January.

Housing starts slipped 3.8 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.1 million homes, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. A sharp 12.8 percent decline in construction in the Midwest and a 3.7 percent dip in the Northeast propelled the broader decrease, with construction also falling in the South. It was nearly unchanged in the West.

The setback occurs after months of improvement for the real-estate market.

For all of 2015, builders broke ground on 1.1 million properties, the most since 2007 when the housing bubble was beginning to burst into a broader recession.