There were a total of 7,863 residential building permits issued in the St Louis MSA during 2020 with 5,719 of this being for single-family homes both of which represent the highest number of building permits issued since 2007. Â As the table below shows, there were 110 building permits issued for 2-unit buildings, 57 permits for 3-4 unit buildings and nearly 2,000 (1,977) issued for buildings with 5 units or more last year.
We’re not even close to the early 2000’s though…
As the chart below does such a great job of illustrating, even though the number of residential building permits in St Louis has increased significantly from hitting bottom in 2011 as a result of the 2008 housing bubble burst, we are still not close to the levels before the crash. Â For the 13 years proceeding the housing bubble burst in 2008, the median number of residential building permits issued in the St Louis MSA in a year was 10,381 permits, 81% more than our “record” year last year.
The “New” Trend?
On the bottom chart, there is a red line which represents the linear trend line for single-family building permits, which on a positive note, does show the number of permits issued in the last 4 years  or so bucking the downward trend.
Is it any wonder the inventory of homes for sale is so low?
[xyz-ips snippet=”Homes-For-Sale”]
Referring back to the table, you can see for the 13 year period leading up to the housing bubble burst in 2008, there were permits issued for 138,489 new single-family homes in the St Louis MSA. Â In the 13 years after that period (through the end of 2020) there have been permits issued for just 61,634 new single-family homes, 55% fewer than the prior period. Â Granted, one of the problems that helped create the housing bubble burst was an oversupply of new homes, but the fact that there have been nearly 5,000 fewer homes built each year in the past 13 years is no doubt part of the reason we have such a low inventory of homes for sale.
St Louis MSA Annual Building Permits 1995-2020 (table)
St Louis MSA Annual Building Permits 1995-2020 (Chart)
St Louis MSA Annual Single Family Building Permits with Trend Line 1995-2020 (Chart)
