Housing starts surprise: Up from January but ...

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The news wires are buzzing this morning with the Commerce Department’s report that housing starts jumped 22% in February from January’s total. That defied the consensus forecast of economists predicting another drop.

But compared to February 2008, new home starts were DOWN 47%. So there’s still a long, long way to go before construction returns to last year’s levels. The uptick was driven mainly by the Northeast. In the West, starts were down 59% in February from a year ago.

-- Peter Y. Hong