New housing construction still lags, but multi-family unit permits boom

The New York metro area has been increasing the number of construction jobs it’s added each year since the recession of 2008, but the number of permits issued for new housing units has not quite bounced back.

In that time, the New York–Newark–Jersey City metro area has added 864,574 construction jobs but  issued permits for only 407,585 new housing units, according to a new report by Apartment List, an online service that connect renters to apartment listings and conducts industry research.

In a balanced market, a new housing unit should be built for every one to two new construction jobs the economy adds, according to Chris Salviati, housing economist at Apartment List.

One of the areas that saw some improvements, however, was the multi-family unit sector.

New York’s multi-family units accounted for 76% of all housing permits between 2006 and 2018, compared with 45% in the pre-recession period from 1990 to 2005.

Nationally, multi-family unit permits increased from 23.4% in the pre-recession period to 33.9% in more recent years.

New York ranked No. 40 among the nation’s 50 largest metro areas for rate of permitting activity.

Source: crainsnewyork.com