Permitting, Construction Starts Up Modestly in January

Statistics on building permits andrnhousing starts increased slightly in January according to the U.S. CensusrnBureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and there was arnsubstantial increase in the number of new homes that reached completion duringrnthe month.</p

Building permits for privately ownedrnhousing units were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 676,000 in January,rn0.7 percent higher than the downwardly revised December figure of 671,000 andrn19.0 percent higher than one year earlier when 568,000 permits werernissued.  The number of permits issued inrnDecember was originally estimated at 679,000.</p

Permits were issued for the constructionrnof single family houses at the rate of 445,000, 0.9 percent above the revised Decemberrnrate of 441,000 (originally estimated at 444,000) and a 6.2 percent increasernfrom the same period in 2011.  Permitsrnwere issued for units in multi-family buildings at an annual rate of 208,000, arn61.2 percent increase from a year earlier.</p

Permits were up by 10.1 percent in thernSouth and 4.2 percent in the Northeast and were down 18.2 percent in the Westrnand 3.7 percent in the Midwest.</p

Building Permits
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Construction was begun on privatelyrnowned housing units in January at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 699,000,rnan increase of 1.5 percent above the upwardly revised December estimate (from 657,000)rnof 689,000 and 9.9 percent higher than the rate of 636,000 in January 2011.</p

Single family housing starts were downrn1.0 percent to 508,000 from a revised December estimate or 513,000 and 16.2rnpercent higher than in January 2011. rnMulti-family starts increased 14.4 percent from 153,000 in December torn175,000 in January.</p

Starts were up on a month-over-monthrnbasis in three regions, the Northeast (7.9 percent), the South (18.3 percent)rnand the West (11.9 percent) but fell 48.7 percent in the Midwest.</p

Housing Starts</p

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Houses reached completion at an annualrnpace of 530,000 in January, a 12.0 percent drop from December’s estimate ofrn602,000 but 4.1 percent above the January 2010 rate of 509,000.  The pace of single-family completions wasrn389,000, down 14 percent from December, and multi-family completions werernunchanged from a month earlier at 136,000. rnCompletions increased 7.5 percent in the Northeast to 36,000 but wererndown in the other three regions.  ThernMidwest declined 21.4 percent to 81,000, the South by 6.8 percent to 276,000rnand the West by 29.3 percent to 87,000.</p

At the end of January there were 76,600rnoutstanding permits nationwide compared to 78,100 in December.  These are permits that have been issued butrnfor which construction had not begun. rnMore than half of these backlogged permits (42,900) are in the South.

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