Housing Construction in California Rises in April, CBIA Announces

SACRAMENTO, CA – May 26, 2011 – (RealEstateRama) — Total housing starts in California, as measured by the number of building permits issued, rose 2 percent in April, the California Building Industry Association announced today.

According to statistics compiled by the Construction Industry Research Board (CIRB), permits were pulled for 3,474 total housing units in April, up 2 percent from the same month a year ago but down 23 percent from March. Permits for single-family homes totaled 1,978, down 16 percent from April 2010 but up 10 percent from the previous month, while multifamily permits totaled 1,496, up 43 percent from a year ago but down 45 percent from March.

For the first four months of the year, permits were pulled for 13,250 total units, down 4 percent when compared to the first four months of 2010 when 13,784 permits were issued. Permits for single-family homes were down 22 percent while permits for multifamily units were up 26 percent.

“While it wasn’t a huge increase, it’s nice to see a slight improvement over last year,” said Mike Winn, CBIA’s President and CEO. “We are closing the gap compared with last year in year-to-date figures as well, and we hope to see continued increases in the summer months.”

Winn noted that CIRB is now projecting 51,000 total permits will be pulled in 2011, up from 2010’s total of 44,762 permits, but still down from 2008’s total of 64,962.

“It appears we will experience another year of modest improvement, but it’s an improvement nonetheless,” said Winn. “As housing has historically been a prolific job and economic generator, we urge local government officials to work with builders on reducing and delaying the collection of impact fees to help make projects more financially feasible so that we can help in our state’s economic recovery by putting more people back to work. We would also urge our state lawmakers to ‘do no harm’ and thoroughly examine any legislation that might harm our industry’s still-fragile recovery.”

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The California Building Industry Association is a statewide trade association representing thousands of homebuilders, remodelers, subcontractors, architects, engineers, designers, and other industry professionals. More information is available on the Association’s Web site, www.cbia.org.

The Construction Industry Research Board (CIRB) is a nonprofit research center established in 1974 to provide statistical information on the California building and construction industry. More information is available on the CIRB Web site, www.cirbdata.com.

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Media Contact:
Michael Castillo
Communications Manager
(916) 443-7933 ext. 346
mcastillo (at) cbia (dot) org