As apartment construction in the Twin Cities calms, house construction is gaining steam, the latest report from the Builders Association of the Twin Cities shows.
During March, 408 permits were issued to build 615 units throughout the 13-county metro. That was a 22 percent increase in planned units, but a 34 percent decline in total number of permits.
The decline in permits was caused by a shift from apartments to single-family houses. Multifamily construction, mostly rental apartments, represented just 35 percent of all new units during the month. That's a contrast to last year when multifamily represented upward of half off all residential construction in the Twin Cities metro.
Because of the decline in apartment construction, there was a decline in the total number of planned units: 1,643 in March vs. 1,867 a year ago.
Though apartment construction during the first three months of the year has slowed slightly compared with the breakneck pace of the past couple years, apartment construction this year is expected to move beyond downtown Minneapolis and surpass the previous year.
The Twin Cities office of Marquette Advisors said that 3,335 units were delivered in 2015, following 4,391 in 2014 and 2,763 in 2013.
In a statement, Meg Jaeger, a custom homebuilder and BATC president, said that after a strong spring Parade of Homes, the permit numbers reflect the positive builder sentiment. "With the Twin Cities existing housing market seeing one of the best starts to the year in more than a decade, and with extremely low resale inventory, we believe this trend will continue to spread to new construction," she said.
Here are the cities that issued the most permits:
Golden Valley: 172
Woodbury: 40
Blaine: 26
Lakeville: 25
Plymouth: 23
