California's home builders are hoping for a better year this year than last. But January didn't start off with much of a bang.
According to stats compiled by the California Industry Research Board, builders in the Golden State pulled permits for just 2,920 units statewide in January. That's 5% fewer permits than in January 2010 and 56% fewer than December.
Permits for single-family homes – again, statewide – totaled just 1,506, a 24% decline from a year ago and down 55% less than the previous month. Multi-family permits totaled 1,414, up 28% from a year ago but down 57% from December.
Mike Winn, president of the California Building Industry Association, said the month-to-month decline is at least partly attributable to a rush to pull permits in December before a rash of new building code changes became effective on Jan. 1.
One change many builders were trying to avoid is the new rule requirement for fire sprinklers in all new houses, which Winn said could "easily add $3,000-$8,000 to the cost" of a new home.
CIRB is now projecting that 62,000 permits will be pulled this year, a 38% improvement over the 44,893 permits taken down in 2010. But that's still down from the 2008 total of 64,962.
