Washington, DC CNN  —  Amid a housing shortage and an affordability crisis, US homebuilding heated up in February as builders anticipate demand for new homes to stay strong. One sure way to improve affordability is to increase the availability of apartments to rent and homes to buy. In areas of the country where there has been robust homebuilding, rents and home price increases have been more moderate. The pace of new housing starts soared by 10.7% in February from the month before, after slumping in January, according to data released Thursday by the Census Bureau. Starts rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.521 million units last month, beating analysts’ estimates of 1.425 million. The pace rebounded from January’s revised pace of 1.374 million and was 5.9% above the 1.436 million pace a year ago. Meanwhile, the pace of new building permits was up 1.9% from January, which was up 2.4% from a year ago.