O.C. Home building up 63% in 2010

May 5th, 2010, 12:11 pm · 3
Jeff Collins

Multi-family building permits took a big leap in the first three months of 2010, helping to push overall home construction up 63.1% from the same period in 2009, home building’s worst year on record, industry figures show.

According to the Construction Industry Research Board:

•Builders took out permits to build 442 new housing units in O.C. in the first quarter of 2010, up from 271 in the first quarter of 2009.
•That’s up 63.1% from year-ago levels, but that’s down 62% from 2008, when permits were issued for 1,164 new housing units. This year’s pace so far is the second-lowest in records dating back to 1946.
•This year’s pace also is down 83.8% from 2004, when permits for 2,720 units were issued during the first quarter of the year.
•The biggest increase occurred in the construction of apartments and multi-story condos: permits were issued for 163 multi-family units in the first quarter this year, vs. 37 units in the same period of 2009.
•Permits for attached and detached single-family homes were up 19.2% to 279 units in the first quarter, vs. 234 in the same period of 2009.
The same trend took place statewide, Construction Industry Research Board figures show. New-home permits increased 28.5% in California this year so far. Said Liz Snow, President and CEO of the California Building Industry Association:

“We’re off to a great start this year. Housing starts are up in all categories for the first quarter of the year when compared to the first quarter of last year, so we’re very optimistic that the worst of the downturn may finally be behind us.â€