The HBA of Denver released a report showing that builders in the Denver Metro area pulled 3,545 building permits last year for single-family, detached homes, 4.9 percent more than the 3,379 permits pulled in 2010. The HBA does not track sales or housing starts. Permits reflect future building activity. Nationally, the Commerce Department reported that about 302,000 new homes were sold last year, the worst year for new home sales since 1963.
"Denver is de-coupling itself from the national market and is moving to the forefront in the recovery cycle," said Jeff Whiton, President and CEO of the HBA of Metro Denver. "We are encouraged."
"Housing activity is up almost 5 percent, which is a step in the right direction," Whiton said. "The numbers are still small. We are still down 70 percent or 75 percent from 2006 and 2007," before the Denver-area and national housing collapse.
"Denver is considered one of the strongest markets in the country, as far as emerging from this down cycle," Whiton said. "Some major cities in Texas are coming back and certain parts of California. Denver is on the forefront of the recovery."
Although the permit activity doesn't correlate exactly with sales, home builders are constructing new homes to meet demand, Whiton said.
"Builders are responding to market conditions," he said. "They are doing really well against the resale market right now. There is not very much resale inventory on the market, so builders are providing the right product to meet the needs of consumers."
The report includes the counties of Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas, Elbert, Jefferson and all of the communities in those counties.
Denver showed the most activity, with 623 permits pulled, followed by Aurora with 501.
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