The U.S. housing market continues its slow but steady recovery, with building permits filed in April rising to the highest level since 2007. According to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau, building permits for private-housing units in April reached a seasonally adjusted, annualized total of 1,143,000. This is 10.1 percent higher than the 1,038,000 recorded in March and 6.4 percent above the April 2014 level of 1,059,000. While these numbers are encouraging, the recovery is far from complete. Residential construction plummeted in the aftermath of the 2007 mortgage crisis, and stayed at historically low levels through 2011 (see chart above). The market has since recovered, but permits are still well below their average from the 1990s and early 2000s. Between January 1994 and September 2007, the number of building permits never fell below 1.2 million and was above 2 million almost every month from 2004 to 2006.