Atlanta & Phoenix: Highest Volume Home Building Markets

Among 1999's top 10 areas in terms of sheer volume of new residential construction, only two — Atlanta and Chicago — have been able to build upon their totals through the first three months of this year.

The other eight of last year's Top 10 highest-volume metropolitan areas all let fewer permits for new residential construction work during the first quarter of this year than during January- March 1999. Declines among last year's top 10 have been especially steep in Orlando and Dallas.

Among last year's "second-tier" of top market areas — numbers 11-25 in the volume of permits issued — this year's first-quarter experience was generally more positive. Of these 15 metropolitan areas, 12 saw more permits issued during the first three months of 2000 than over the same period last year. Only the Raleigh-Durham, Portland, and Kansas City metropolitan areas have registered declines in permit activity to this point in 2000. The most impressive over-the-year gains have been recorded in Los Angeles, Columbus, Minneapolis, and Denver.

Three metro areas that were just outside of last year's "Top 25" — and that are coming on strong to the point that they could break into this year's highest-volume list — are Sacra- mento (with 3,459 residential permits issued through March 2000, up 38.6% from a year ago), St. Louis (3,225 permits, +9.4%), and Memphis (3,197 permits, +41.0%).

Although overall residential construction work has continued to fade in the state of Texas during the early months of 2000, the sharpest losses have been concentrated in the major metropolitan markets of Dallas (-34.4%), Houston (-16.7%), and San Antonio (-17.7%).

At the same time, some small-and mid-sized markets in the state have fared reasonably well so far this year.

And the surprising strength of home building in Northeast markets is apparent in permit trends through the first quarter of this year (although the volume of construction activity — on a per capita basis — continues to fall well short of totals for comparably-sized markets in the South and West). Among metropolitan areas nationwide that had issued at least 500 permits for new residential construction through March of this year, the New York suburban area of Bergen-Passaic, New Jersey (+167.1%) recorded the sharpest over-the-year increase in permitted activity.

Other metro areas in the Northeast that registered permit growth of 10% or more through the first quarter of this year included: Pittsburgh (+35.7%), Rochester (+35.4%), and both Middlesex-Hunterdon (+15.7%) and Newark (+14.1%) in New Jersey.