3.5 Million Homes May be Remodeled this Year

Home remodeling appears to be growing even morernsteadily that other sectors of the residential construction industry.  Building permits for improvements to existingrnresidential buildings increased in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate ofrn3.51 million.  This is 2 percent abovernthe revised June rate of 3.46 million and 16 percent higher than in Julyrn2012.  Permits then were issued at arnseasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.03 million.</p

Thernremodeling data was released by BuildFax. rnIts Chief Technology Officer Joe Emison said, “The national upward trend in remodeling is unmistakablernwith the notable exception of the Northeast, in which the major cities (Boston,rnNew York) have seen substantially less residential remodeling this year thanrnlast year, even though overall permit volumes have remained close to lastrnyear’s totals.” </p

As Emison pointed out, seasonallyrnadjusted rates of remodeling in the Northeast did take a serious tumble, downrn32 percent from June and 52 percent from a year earlier to 476,000rnpermits.  There were 1.30 million permitsrnfor remodeling issued in the South, an increase of 6 percent from June and 4rnpercent from July 2012.  The Midwestrnincreased 3 percent month-over-month to 1.08 million permits which was arnstaggering 80 percent improvement over one year earlier.  In the West there were 868,000 new permits,rnan increase of 8 percent and 16 percent respectively.  </p

The BuildFax Remodeling Index (BFRI)rnis based on construction permits for residential remodeling projects filed withrnlocal building departments across the country.  The national and regionalrnindexes are based upon a subset of representative building departments in thernU.S. and population estimates from the U.S. Census. 

All Content Copyright © 2003 – 2009 Brown House Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.nReproduction in any form without permission of MortgageNewsDaily.com is prohibited.