The Commerce Department has said that housing starts zoomed up 14.5 percent in January to the highest level in nearly 33 years as groundbreaking on new single-family houses hit a record high. The starts climbed to a 2.276 million unit annual rate - faster than economists' forecasts of a 2 million unit pace. January's pace was the fastest since March 1973.
January's increase in housing starts from December was the largest monthly percentage gain since March 1994, when starts rose 17 percent.