Kai Ryssdal: We’ve all learned to take what appear to be positive economic indicators with a grain of salt the past year or so. And today’s no different. We learned this morning the number of new homes under construction shot up in February, 22 percent over the previous month. The grain of salt here is this: The report for that previous month — January, is another way to say that — was a drop to a record low. So a bounce is great, as long as it’s kept in perspective. What is interesting, though, about the February report is that much of the increase was because of the number of apartments being built. We asked Ashley Milne-Tyte to find out whether apartments might be leading the housing market back.
ASHLEY MILNE-TYTE: Anyone thinking of celebrating should probably put the champagne back in the fridge. Mike Larson is a real-estate analyst with Weiss Research. He says the construction of single-family homes increased just one percent in February. As for that jump in apartment starts…
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