Nationally, housing starts rose 26 percent during the same period, with total housing starts rising to a total of 68,300.
Total housing starts remain well below peak levels both nationally and in the West. May 2012 housing starts in the West were 69 percent below the peak reached during May 2004. Nationally, May 2012 was 65 percent below peak levels. The national peak in housing starts was reached during May 2005.
Multifamily starts have rebounded more than single-family starts. In the West, single-family starts are 76 percent below peak levels while multifamily starts are only 49 percent below peak levels. The single-family housing starts for the West region during May were at the highest point reached since August 2008.
The West census region includes states on the west coast and within the Rocky Mountain region.
The first graph shows the difference between single-family starts and starts for structures in the West with more than one housing unit. Both remain near ten-year lows, but single-family starts in the West rose 34 percent from May 2011 to May 2012. Starts for structures with more than one unit were up 10 percent to 5,100 units over the same period.
The second graph shows month-by-month comparisons in housing starts for each year in the West. May's housing starts total was a 24 percent increase from April and were at a four-year high for any month since august 2008. Nationally, the increase from April to May 2012 was 2.5 percent. Numbers are not seasonally adjusted.
May 2012's multifamily starts were at the highest May total seen in four years There were 5,100 multifamily starts during May 2012 and 4,600 during May 2011.
