Housing starts unexpectedly increase in February after falling for eight consecutive months according to a government report released Tuesday.

The Commerce Department reported that the construction of new homes surprisingly increased to a seasonally adjusted rate of 583,000 units last month, up 22.2 percent from a revised 477,000 in January. Home starts are still below than 47.3 percent from February 2008 figures when there were over 1.1 million new homes start construction.

New home construction in the Northeast surged 89 percent last month. Increases were also observed in the Midwest and the South. But in the West where the housing market was overbuilt in the boom years and where there is a large inventory of foreclosed homes, starts dropped nearly 25 percent compared to January. 

The increase in February can be attributed to the big increase in multi-family homes construction, which can be highly very unpredictable from month to month. Construction of multi-family homes increased by nearly 80 percent to 212,000 from 118,000 in January.

New single family home construction posted a 1.1 percent to an annual rate of 357,000 versus 353,000 in January.

For building permits application which is a sign of future construction activity, it posted an increase of 3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 547,000 last month. Permits for single family homes increased 11 percent.