Sep 12 2007
Building Boom or Bust?
As I was driving to an appointment on the Cape this afternoon, I was struck by the number of houses under construction along the way, and began to wonder if perhaps this is a sign that things might be picking up a bit. I easily counted no fewer than 8 in less than a 1 mile stretch, so I decided to check it out when I got back to my office.
According to the Gulf County Building Department, there were 232 building permits issued county-wide in all of 2006, for an average of 19.58 per month. Using that average and multiplying it by the 8 months we’ve completed through August, the county should have issued about 155 permits so far this year. Wrong. Year-to-date in 2007 there have only been 56 permits issued which constitutes a whopping 64% drop.
We’ll keep an eye on this as one indicator as to when we might expect to see the real estate pendulum start swinging back the other way.