Starts Watch: 1999 Final Totals
United States residential building permits totaled 1,663,533
housing units in 1999 according to the C40 Housing Units
Authorized by Building Permit report issued by the US Census
Bureau. This is a 3.2% increase from the 1998 total of 1,612,260
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.
Florida supplants Texas as the state with the most overall
housing permits with 164,863, up 10.8% from 1998.
Following are Texas (146,564 down 6.5% from 1998) and
California (138,039, up 11.3% from 1998). The states with
the fewest permits were Wyoming (1,900), Alaska (2,211), and
Montana (2,566).
The states with the greatest percentage increase in total
starts from 1998 were Rhode Island (29.2%), Hawaii (26.7%) and
Vermont (18.3%). The greatest percent decreases from 1998
were in Alaska (-23.1%), North Dakota (-13.3%) and Nevada
(-11.8%).
Single-family permits for the United States totaled 1,246,665
in 1999, up 5.0% from 1,187,602 in 1998. This is the
second consecutive year for that US single-family permits set a
new record high. By state, Florida replaced Texas as the
state with the highest number of single-family permits, totaling
106,569, an 8.9% increase from 1998. California was second
with 102,750, a 10.0% increase from 1998. Texas slipped to
third, totaling 101,848, 1 2.0% increase from 1998. The
states with the fewest single-family permits were North Dakota
(1,443), followed by Wyoming (1,456) and Alaska (1,539).
The states with the greatest percentage increase for
single-family permits from 1998 were Vermont (19.3%), Hawaii
(17.6%) and West Virginia (15.8%). The states with the
greatest decreases in single-family permits from 1998 were
Alaska (-23.4%), North Dakota (-15.3%) and Wyoming (-6.8%).
- Map of total single-family permits by state: GIF
| Acrobat
- Map of percent change in single-family permits from 1998
to 1999: GIF |Acrobat
Multifamily permits totaled 416,868 in 1999, down 1.8% from
424,658 in 1998. Florida passed Texas as the state with the
highest number of multifamily starts, totaling 58,153 a 14.7%
increase from 1998. Texas was second with 44,716, a
decrease of 21.4%. California was third with 35,289, a
15.2% increase. The lowest number of multifamily permits
was in Maine (313), followed by Vermont (413), and Wyoming
(444).
The state with the highest percentage increase in multifamily
permits from 1998 is Rhode Island, which showed a 598.0%
increase, from 102 units to 712 units. Following were
Hawaii (82.0%), and Wyoming 45.6%. Perhaps even more
important than these increases in traditionally low-permit
states is the 38.1% increase in Ohio, an increase of 4,366
units. The states with the largest decreases were Maine
(-49.8%), Connecticut (-49.2%) and Nebraska (-41.6%).
Probably the most important decrease was in Texas, where
multifamily permits were down by 12,182 units from 1998.
- Map of total multifamily permits by state: GIF
| Acrobat
- Map of percent change in multifamily permits from 1998 to
1999 by state: GIF | Acrobat
- Map of ratio of multifamily permits to total permits,
1999: GIF | Acrobat
We have also updated our graphs of historical starts:
Back to Starts Watch Page
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