California’s home builders pulled permits for 21% more houses in November versus the same month a year ago. But the surprising jump won’t be enough to keep the Golden State from seeing its second lowest number of annual housing starts ever.
According to the Construction Industry Research Board, permits were pulled for 3,175 total housing units in November, up 21% from 2,632 units in November 2009 and up 35% from 2,348 in October.
Permits for single-family homes totaled 1,318, a decline of 28% from 1,822 in November a year ago and down 10% from the previous month, when permits totaled 1,456 state-wide. But multi-family permits totaled 1,857, up 129% from 810 a year ago and up 108% from 892 in October.
For the first 11 months of the year, California builders pulled permits for 37,944 units, up 16% percent when compared to the same period in 2009, when 32,826 permits were issued. Permits for single-family homes continued to fall behind last year’s pace, though, dropping 4% compared to the first 11 months of 2009, while multi-family permits were up 59%.
Mike Winn, president of the California Building Industry Association, called the increase in activity welcome news, but said he remained disheartened by the near record-low total for the year. “It’s great to see an increase in production at this time of year,” Winn said. “But unfortunately, it looks like we’ll end up with a much more modest recovery than we had hoped for at the beginning of the year.”
Nevertheless, with the numbers pointing upward, the CBIA president said his members builders are hoping for a more robust recovery in 2011.
The CIRB is now projecting a total of 41,000 units for the year, which would be the second-lowest total since records began being kept in 1954. CIRB is projecting an increase to 65,000 total units for 2011, slightly above 2008’s total of 64,962 units.
