"The local new home building industry continues to mirror the slowdown in the national economy," says Tim Underwood, executive vice president of the Home Builders Association of Greater Kansas City. "We understand that traffic and sales have picked up in the last couple of months, but this has mostly cleared out inventory from last year.
"Local builders have yet to make a definite prediction on how strong they think the market will be for the rest of the year," he adds. "At this point, the consensus seems to be that the rest of the year will be down somewhat from last year's levels."
In the first two months of this year, 1,057 single-family permits were issued. During the first two months of 2000, local governments issued 1,465 permits.
A city on both sides of the state line represented the leaders in permits issued. In Kansas, Olathe issued 158 permits and in Missouri, Kansas City issued the same number of permits. In Kansas City, the majority of new home construction is occurring north of the river, and away from the urban core.
Last year, during the first two months of the year, Kansas City issued 213 permits and Olathe issued 190. Part of the reason for the growth in Olathe is abundant open land, which many of the other western suburbs do not have.
Johnson County, does however, maintain the highest interest. In all, Johnson County communities issued 442 permits, which equates to about 42% of the permits issued thus far this year. Last year, Johnson cCunty cities issued 600 permits, or 41%, of the total.
Last year, a total of 7,653 permits were issued for single-family housing construction, the lowest in five years.
The HBA counts building permits in Cass, Clay, Jackson and Platte counties in Missouri. In Kansas, numbers are recorded in Johnson, Leavenworth and Wyandotte counties.
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