Housing starts in the United States fell by 4.6% from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.246 million units, the lowest since the Covid pandemic triggered a plunge in starts in the second quarter of 2020. The decline was marked for housing with five or more units (-25.9% to 347,000), offsetting the increase for single-unit houses (5.4% to 874,000). Among different regions, starts fell sharply in the West (-21.9% to 243,000) and slightly in the Northeast (-0.6% to 154,000), offsetting increases in the South (1.2% to 650,000) and the Midwest (0.5% to 199,000).