“Construction” is a bit misleading. These were starts. Permits were up slightly. Completions were still down. Entire report is here. http://www.census.gov/const/newresconst.pdf
February was still significantly lower than 12 of the last 14 months, (and the 3rd lowest since the early ’60’s) and 47% lower than February a year ago.
More importantly, single family starts were only 1.1% higher than January and 50.5% lower than last February.
One number does not make a trend. Two more months like this and we may be at the bottom. But this bottom would only be for construction. It would mean that further job losses related to construction would be minimal. Unless inventory is reduced (requiring new home sales in excess of completions) we still will not be at the bottom price wise.
