Housing starts are up nationwide, and Hall County is catching some of that wave.

“We’re seeing construction across the country, including Georgia and Hall County, as result of a growing shortage of housing,” said Frank Norton, a Gainesville real estate executive and observer of development trends.

“However, we are not building houses at the same rate as prerecession levels.”

The U.S. Commerce Department said Tuesday that builders broke ground on homes last month at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 917,000.

That’s up from 910,000 in January. And it’s the second-fastest pace since June 2008, behind December’s rate of 982,000.

Single-family home construction increased to an annual rate of 618,000, the most in 4« years. Apartment construction also ticked up, to 285,000.

The gains are likely to grow even faster in the coming months. Building permits, a sign of future construction, increased 4.6 percent to 946,000. That was also the most since June 2008, or about six months into the Great Recession.

And the figures for January and December were also revised higher. Overall housing starts have risen 28 percent higher over the past 12 months.

Rusty Ligon, community development director for Gainesville, said that home building permits jumped by 100 percent in 2012, climbing to 94 from 47 in 2011.

So far this year, the city has issued 27 permits.

“It looks as if 2013 will surpass 2012 numbers,” Ligon said.

All this after the city “hit likely an all-time low in 2010” by issuing just one permit.

The U.S. Census Bureau also bears out the rising trend in housing permits in its Building Permits Survey.

The Gainesville metropolitan statistical area, which also includes parts of unincorporated Hall, issued permits for 261 “residential units” in 2012, up from 186 in 2011 and 153 in 2010.

The report indicates 21 units in January, up from eight in January 2012 and seven in January 2013.

Norton said permits are in the 8,500 range for all of metro Atlanta, up from the 4,000 homes built during the depths of the recession, but down from 55,000 annually in prerecession years.

“We have some hot subdivisions in Hall County,” he said.

Village at Deaton Creek off Thompson Mill Road in South Hall “has been the fastest-selling subdivision in the last three years in metro Atlanta,” he said, citing

Metrostudy, which provides market information to the housing and related industries nationwide.

Cresswind at Lake Lanier on Browns Bridge Road in Gainesville and Sterling on the Lake in Flowery Branch are also among the most bustling developments.

Housing sales and construction also are buzzing at one of the area’s largest neighborhoods, Mundy Mill, a 604-acre development bounded by Mundy Mill and Mountain View roads.

It has sold 10 homes in 45 days, something “unheard of in the past six years,” said John Schwartz, sales manager.

“We’re in the process of starting 10 more (homes). We’re still operating on a presale basis, and so, about five of those sales have been presale contracts based on our furnished model home.”

Norton said he believes housing construction is “growing at a safe — perhaps too safe — rate.”

Still, the signs for overall economic recovery are encouraging.

“The housing industry led this recession downward and, from everything I’m hearing, it’s going to pull us out,” he said.

“Housing was such a huge employer, with all the various trades and pieces to it, so it’s a very positive sign for Hall County.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.