Twin Cities Residential Construction Hits 2-Year Low

Residential construction numbers in the Twin Cities sunk to a two-year low this month despite a lack of available homes for sale in the metro area, a report found Tuesday.
 
Data compiled by the Keystone Report for the Builders Association of the Twin Cities (BATC) indicated that 286 permits were issued in February. Twenty-four percent of those permits were for multifamily homes, a rate that has fallen consistently since last November when multifamily homes made up 73 percent of residential construction.
 
For the last 11 months prior to February, an average of 446 multifamily units have had permits pulled each month. This month, only 92 multifamily units were permitted. The production of single-family homes also slid 18 percent from its year-ago number.
 
“With a record low number of homes for sale in the Twin Cities, you would think new home production would be set to grow dramatically,” BATC president Meg Jaeger said in a statement. “The challenge is to make sure that the regulatory burden is diminished so that first-time home buyers can enter the market.”
 
Minneapolis issued the most permitted units with 47 in February, followed by Golden Valley with 46, Woodbury and Lakeville with 23 units each, and Plymouth with 21 units permitted.
 
Despite the weak month, Jaeger said that homebuilders still feel “cautiously optimistic about the market” this year.

A lack of residential homes being built has been a troubling issue for areas outside the Twin Cities as well, particularly in Cook county where housing construction has struggled to keep pace with the area's growing workforce.