Housing starts is an economic indicator that reflects the number of privately owned new houses (technically ''housing units'') on which

construction Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form objects, systems, or organizations,"Construction" def. 1.a. 1.b. and 1.c. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Press 2009 and com ...

has been started in a given period. These data are divided into three types:

single-family houses A stand-alone house (also called a single-detached dwelling, detached residence or detached house) is a free-standing residential building. It is sometimes referred to as a single-family home, as opposed to a multi-family residential dwelling ...

townhouses A townhouse, townhome, town house, or town home, is a type of terraced housing. A modern townhouse is often one with a small footprint on multiple floors. In a different British usage, the term originally referred to any type of city residence ...

or small

condos A condominium (or condo for short) is an ownership structure whereby a building is divided into several units that are each separately owned, surrounded by common areas that are jointly owned. The term can be applied to the building or complex ...

, and apartment buildings with five or more units. Each

apartment An apartment (American English), or flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies part of a building, generally on a single story. There are ma ...

unit is considered a single start. The construction of a 30-unit apartment building is counted as 30 housing starts.

External links

United States Census Bureau

* ttp://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~nroubini/bci/HousingStarts.htm Housing Starts at NYU
UK National Statistics

Historical US housing starts
– monthly data since 1959 Housing {{econ-theory-stub