Housing starts up

National housing starts rose 4.4 percent year-over-year in December and topped one million units during 2014, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.

Those numbers were driven mostly by gains in single-family housing construction, according to the commerce department, which released its data Wednesday.

“[These] figures continue to be in line with our recent surveys, as builders have been becoming increasingly optimistic,” said Kevin Kelly, chairman of the National Home Builders in Washington, D.C., in a statement.

Production of single-family homes rose 7.2 percent in December, while multifamily starts rose one percent. Combined single-family and multifamily production was up in three regions – the northeast, south and west – at the end of last year, according to the commerce department data.