US Townhouse Starts Climb 27% Year-Over-Year in 2024Q4

The latest US Census Bureau data on Starts and Completions by Purpose and Design, with additional analysis provided by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), reveals that single-family attached starts totaled 47,000 units in 2023Q4, a 27% increase from 2022Q4.

According to the NAHB, this represents an acceleration over the last four quarters, during which townhouse construction starts totaled a strong 158,000 homes, which is almost 7% higher than the prior four-quarter period when 148,000 starts were recorded. Of note, townhouses made up almost 20% of total housing starts in Q4.

Using a one-year moving average, the market share of newly built townhouses represented 16.7% of all single-family starts in Q4. With the recent gains, the four-quarter moving average market share is the highest on record (since 1985).

Prior to the current cycle, the NAHB says the peak market share of the last two decades for townhouse construction was during 2008Q1 when the share reached 14.6%, on a one-year moving average basis. This high point was after a fairly consistent increase beginning in the early 1990’s.