When the coronavirus pandemic upended the U.S. economy, many states halted or limited construction work. While real estate development is beginning to resume, recently released data from the U.S. Census Bureau showed an unprecedented drop in residential building permits comparing April of this year to April of 2019. Nationally, there was a 20 percent decline in new housing units authorized by building permits, a drop that represents nearly $4.4 billion in value.
According to the New Residential Construction Report, COVID-19 negatively affected all stages of housing construction, but new building permit authorizations and housing starts fell further than completions of existing projects. At the national level, both new building permits and housing starts decreased to their lowest levels in half a decade.
A dramatic decline in new housing unit authorizations now indicates that there will be a prolonged slowdown in new home construction in the coming months—the average time between permit issue and the start of construction is about 1-2 months. It remains uncertain how long it will take new housing authorizations to reach their pre-COVID levels.For more information, a detailed methodology, and complete results for all states, you can find the original report on Construction Coverage’s website.