Single-Family Home Permits Drop in Volusia County
The number of permits for new single-family homes in Volusia County during the first quarter of 2007 fell nearly 45 percent from 12 months ago, according to a new report issued on U.S. housing markets.
Permits for multi-family dwellings also declined over the same period, but not as sharply, the report said. Similar statistics for Flagler County were not available.
The latest quarterly figures continue a decline that began in early 2006. Rick Michael, Volusia County’s economic development director, said his agency tracks the housing permits issued by every city and the county every three months, and those figures show the number actually peaked in the last quarter of 2005.
“You cannot measure against 2005 because it was an artificially robust year,” Michael said. “The [Florida housing market] has come down to what it was before it heated up (that year). We’re back to normal.”
Michael said about 3,500 new homes must be built every year just to accommodate Volusia County’s net population influx of about 9,000 new residents. In addition, the current population also is growing, albeit at a slower pace, he said.
Much of the increase in permits in recent years was due to condo construction, although that segment of the housing market also has started to slow down.
The downturn in housing starts also affects construction employment, Michael said, although the decline in jobs will lag behind the fall in permits issued.
But not all builders are seeing tough times. Custom builder Herman Stoll Jr., president of Stoll Construction, said he’s fortunate that a strong segment of his business is remodeling and additions.
“That’s what people are doing more of,” Stoll said. “I have about as much work as I did a year ago.”
Florida mortgage borrowers realize moving will result in higher property taxes, Stoll said, especially if they have been benefiting for several years from the Save Our Homes provision that limits annual property assessments.
The U.S. Housing Markets report by Hanley Wood LLC shows 522 single-family home permits were issued in Volusia County - the Daytona Beach metropolitan statistical area - during the January-March period this year, along with permits for 127 multi-family dwellings.
The figures are significantly below those from the year-earlier quarter, when permits for 928 single-family homes and 186 multi-family dwellings were issued by local governments.
In the first quarter of 2005, when the local housing market was still on an upswing, 1,382 single-family and 291 multi-family permits were issued. In the first three months of 2004, the figures were 1,131 single-family permits and 730 multi-family permits.
SOURCE: The Daytona Beach News-Journal
