Posted: Monday, May 24, 2010 9:08 am

During the first quarter of 2010, housing construction in Tennessee rose mostly due to gains in multifamily building.

According to the latest edition of Tennessee Housing Market, a publication of MTSU’s Business and Economic Research Center, “Single-family construction, the core of the housing market, increased for the fifth consecutive quarter, but the gain was modest, up just 2.5 percent from the fourth quarter, climbing to 13,700 units.”

Multifamily permits, however, returned to 2007 levels with a increase to 6,000 units.

“Tennessee experienced much more construction activity compared with the South and U.S. markets during the first quarter, again solely due to multifamily activity. Single-family permits lagged behind the South and the U.S. during the first quarter,” the report said.