Multifamily permits hit 56-month high in August

The Census Bureau will release new permit data next week for September.

In the meantime, here's a quick look at August's permits, which were up quite a bit in multifamily. 

Through August 2012 in Colorado this year, building permits issued for multifamily construction were up 137 percent, year over year, while permits issued for single-family construction were up 34 percent for the same period. 

During August 2012,  1259 multifamily permits were issued in Colorado, and 1,436 single-family permits were issued. During August 2011, there were 655 multi-family permits issued, and 1017 single-family permits issued. The first graph shows permit activity for the first eight months of the year since 1999. Through August of this year, there have been 8,669 single-family permits and 5,671 multifamily permits issued.

For August alone,  multifamily permits are up  92 percent and singlefamily permits are up 41 percent, compared to August 2011.

The second graph shows that overall,both multifamily and single-family permits continue to move upward with the most recent three months being particularly active in multifamily permitting. 

During August 2012, the number of new multfamily permits issued was at an eleven-year high and far above any other August totals since 2001. There were 1,622 multifamily permits issued during August 2001.  

Single-family permits for August were at a five-year high and actually topped the pre-financial-crisis permit total from 2008. This suggests that even single-family construction is beginning to see some real signs of life for the first time since 2008.  

Once again, multi-family growth trends outpaced single-family growth, and August 2012 was one of the strongest months for multifamily activity in recent years. In fact, August 2012 had the largest multifamily permit total of any month since December 2007.