From IBD (boldface mine)
Housing starts shot up 22.2% from January's all-time low to an annualized 583,000 units, the Commerce Department said — thanks to a spike in new apartment and condo activity. Analysts expected another fall. Starts were still down 47.3% vs. a year ago...
The housing data, along with higher retail sales excluding autos in January-February, give optimists some hope that the recession, which began in December 2007, may be starting to ease...
Pessimists note that single-family starts — up just 1.1% — are essentially at record lows, consumer spending has been helped by one-time factors, and industrial activity shows no glimmer of recovery.
I'm not sure why a jump in housing starts is perceived as good news when home inventory is still rising. You have to work off the inventory before housing starts become meaningful. Apartment buildings were the key metric driving the increase in this data. I believe there is one start per unit within the building which further skews the data.
