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The Commerce Department reported Friday that construction of new homes and apartments dropped by 6.3 percent last month, a much bigger decline than the 1.6 percent decrease that had been expected. It pushed total production to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 817,000 units. That's the slowest pace since January 1991, a period when the country was in a recession and going through a similar painful housing correction.
The declines last month reflected weakness in all parts of the country. It was led by a 7.7 percent drop in the Northeast, where construction of single-family units dropped to the lowest level on record.
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