Housing construction up in metro

Housing construction soared, while apartment construction slowed a bit during July.

That's according to a new monthly report from the Builders Association of the Twin Cities, which tracks construction activity for most of the metro cities in the 13-county area. It showed builders were issued 533 permits to build 698 units during the four-week period ended Thursday. Year-to-date, residential and commercial builders were issued 2,912 permits to build 4,914 units. Of those permits issued this month, 509 were for single-family houses.

So far this year, multifamily projects represented 43 percent of all planned units, but during June those permits represented just 27 percent of all units.