How is the building industry of the United States of America faring? This is not the question of the real estate agents and developers but also of the common people since the pace of this industry determines several other aspects. Well, the condition is far from improvement still and as stated by the latest reports, there was a drastic reduction in the number of building permits issued in the Twin Cities in the month of January. This has been the prudence of the report when compared with the same period in the previous year.
However, the number of housing units planned for the metro area increased by more than 50 percent last month compared to December. The report results from the data compiled by the Builders Association of the Twin Cities (BATC) and on the word of it the number of building permits issued in January fell to 127. What was the number during the same month in 2008? Well it was 235! According to industry experts, if the number of permits issued last month is taken into account, this was the lowest January figure recorded by the organization in the past five years.
On the other hand, as stated by the same report, the number of permitted housing units slipped as well compared to last year. It fell to 340 in January whereas in the year-ago period it was 364. But the number in the last month was better than December 2008 when there were 223 planned units only. What was the reason of this development? Well, in accordance with the conviction of BATC, the presence of two sizeable multifamily projects became the decisive factor. But details are not known yet.
Is there any prediction? Not only BATC but any other organization has declined to say something in this regard. For that reason it seems that the gruesome effects of downturn will continue at full strength or intensity. The wait for better days may be long hence.
0 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.