Housing starts in Japan dropped by 5.7 percent year-on-year in April 2019, worse than market consensus of a 0.8 percent fall and after a 10.0 percent jump in the previous month. This was the first yearly decline in housing starts since November last year, when the reading showed a 0.6 percent decrease. New construction starts for built for sale plunged (-6 percent vs 33.4 percent in March), in particular collective housing (-15.1 percent vs 69.5 percent), amid a noticeable slowdown in construction starts for prefabricated (1 percent vs 2.7 percent in March). Meanwhile, starts rose faster for: owned (9.2 percent vs 8.9 percent), rented (16.7 percent vs 4.5 percent), issued (75.9 percent vs 62.4 percent), and two-by-four (11.6 percent vs 4.8 percent). Housing Starts in Japan averaged 2.49 percent from 1961 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 67.63 percent in March of 1972 and a record low of -43.96 percent in September of 2007.