Existing homes are selling incredibly fast in San Diego County and throughout Southern California, and the same holds true for single-home residential construction.
Simply said, single-home construction in SoCal is booming. Because of the high demand, the region is on track to build 9,500 to 10,000 homes this year.
Construction experts report that single-family home building in San Diego County increased during the first nine months of the year, up 11.3 percent from the previous year with 2,516 permits. Just behind San Diego County is Riverside County, which experienced a 7.3 increase in single-family building permits during the same period.
Data for San Diego County, provided by the Construction Industry Research Board, shows that 3,831 permits were pulled in the first 9 months of 2020, and 1,094 permits were pulled in unincorporated San Diego County. It was followed by Chula Vista with 489, Vista with 345 and Carlsbad with 340. Communities with the fewest housing permits were Solana Beach with 10, Del Mar with 11 and La Mesa with 13.
On a state level, California has seen a slight slowdown in single-family residential construction. The California Association of Realtors is forecasting just a 3.8 percent increase in building permits in 2021. The state’s single-family home creation fell to 6.3 percent, below its 6.9 percent average during the previous five years. Nationally, 11 states performed worse than California, and single-family permits rose 14 percent elsewhere in the U.S.
The state’s strict pandemic business regulations, the high cost of housing and the cost of new construction as well as a shortage of construction workers have affected the state’s rate of new construction. Stay-at-home mandates created a wait-and-see approach from some builders, who decided to delay construction plans, too.
However, in Southern California communities, residential construction has been thriving. The city of San Diego’s success in part is related to the proactive programs created to move some of the construction approval processes online. These steps helped to maintain safety while allowing the construction momentum to continue.
The bottom line is – all of this is very good news for San Diego.
Murfey Company, a leader in residential and nonresidential development in San Diego and Southern California, is dedicated to building housing as a developer of its own projects as well as a third-party builder for developers who seek are seeking a construction company to team up with. For more information, visit www.murfeycompany.com.
This article originally appeared in The La Jolla Light