A government report on Wednesday, April 16, 2008 stated that home building projects that were started in March of 2008 fell by 11.9 percent to a lower-than-expected annual rate while building permit activity, was off 5.8 percent.

The Commerce Department said that the housing starts set an annual pace of 947,000 units in March of 2008, which is lower than the 1.02 million that was expected by economists. The February, 2008 starts figure was revised upward to 1.075 million from the 1.065 million originally reported.