February brought no relief to the beleaguered home building business in California, where builders pulled fewer permits to start new houses than they did in January.
According to the Construction Industry Research Board, permits were taken out for a paltry 2,088 units statewide in February. That's a 41% drop from the same month a year ago and a 26% slide from January.
Permits were issued for 1,204 single-family homes in the entire state, the country's most populous, and for only 884 multi-family units.
For the first two months of 2011, permits were issued for 4,894 single and multi-family units combined. That's 26% less than the same period last year, when 6,587 permits were issued. Permits for single-family homes were down 25%; permits for multi-family units, off 27%.
Mike Winn, president of the California Building Industry Association, said that in addition to the slow economic recovery, a major reason for the poor showing so far this year is the fact that many builders rushed to take out permits in December before new code changes requiring fire sprinklers in all new homes became effective as of Jan. 1.
"We still believe that the surge in permits pulled in December could have very well taken away from future demand for building permits that would have been issued in January and February." Winn said. He also said that continued weakness in the job market and strict lending standards continue to weigh heavily on the home buying market.
CIRB is now projecting 60,000 total permits for 2011, up from 2010's total of 44,955 permits but still down from 2008's total of 64,962.
