Starts Watch: 1998 Totals

United States residential building permits totaled 1,612,260 housing units in 1998 according to the C40 Housing Units Authorized by Building Permit report issued by the US Census Bureau. This is an 11.9% increase from the 1997 total of 1,441,136 units.

We have analyzed the starts information by state in a series of tables and maps. All maps are in both GIF and Acrobat format. For offline printing and analysis, we recommend the Acrobat format because of the Acrobat Reader's ability to magnify the map area and its better printing resolution.

Texas was the state with the most overall housing permits (156,729), followed by Florida (148,603) and California (124,035). The states with the fewest permits were Wyoming (1,867), Vermont (2,198), and Montana (2,561).

• HTML Table with 1998 totals by state, plus percent change from 1997.
• Microsoft Excel 97 spreadsheet with 1998 totals by state and percent change from 1997
• Microsoft Excel 97 speadsheet with Metropolitan Statistical Area totals for 1998, plus change from 1997
• Map of states by total residential permits: GIF format | Acrobat format
• Map of states by percent change in total units permitted, 1997 to 1998: GIF format | Acrobat format

Single-family permits for the United States totaled 1,187,602  in 1998, up 11.8% from 1,062,396 in 1997. By state, the highest number of single-family permits was in Texas (99,831), followed by Florida (97,889) and California (93,414). The lowest number of single-family permits was in Montana (1,485), followed by Wyoming  (1,562) and North Dakota (1,704).

• Map of total single-family permits by state: GIF format | Acrobat format
• Map of percent change in single-family permits from 1997 to 1998: GIF format |Acrobat format

Multifamily permits totaled 424,658 in 1998, up 12.1% from 378,740 in 1997. By state, the most multifamily permits were in Texas (56,898), followed by Florida (50,714) and California (30,621). The lowest number of multifamily permits was in Rhode Island (102), followed by Wyoming (305), and Vermont (365).

• Map of total multifamily permits by state: GIF format | Acrobat format
• Map of percent change in multifamily permits from 1997 to 1998 by state: GIF format | Acrobat format
• Map of ratio of multifamily permits to total permits, 1998: GIF format | Acrobat format

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