Multifamily Permitting Decreases in August via Axiometrics

The U.S. Census Bureau posted its August residential permitting numbers by metropolitan statistical area (MSA) on Thursday, September 26. Privately-owned housing units authorized by building permit in August, measured on a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR), were 918,000. This was down 3.8% from the revised July rate of 954,000, but was 11.0% higher than the August 2012 estimate of 827,000. Single-family permits in August—627,000 units—were up 3.0% from the July number and more than 20% over August 2012. Annual multifamily (MF) permits decreased 15.7% from July’s annual rate and were 3.9% lower than the comparable period a year ago. With August 2013 MF permits totaling 268,000 units, annual MF permitting has averaged 312,000 units over the last 12 months. New York, Houston, Austin, and Dallas remain some of the strongest multifamily permitting markets in the nation and Denver, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Washington, DC are still in the top ten. Miami dropped out of the top ten, switching places with last month’s number 11, Orlando. Moving onto the list of the top twenty is Columbus, OH, which dropped Santa Ana (Orange County) to number 21.

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