New residential construction in the U.S. showed an unexpected decrease in the month of February, according to a report released by the Commerce Department on Tuesday, although housing starts came in nearly in line with estimates due to an upward revision to the data for January. The report showed that housing starts fell 1.1 percent to an annual rate of 698,000 in February from the revised January estimate of 706,000. Economists had expected starts to edge up to 700,000 from the 699,000 that had been reported for the previous month.