Number of new-housing permits climbs

The jump in the number of new housing construction permits issued by the city of Maricopa from January through April isn’t staggering, but enough to beg the question: Is this a trend that shows a revival of the industry in the city?

In January seven permits were issued, the same number as January 2011. Then, in February, the number increased to 16, double the figure for the same month a year ago. March saw the 2012 total jump to 31, nearly two and a half times more than last year.

Last month, 40 new-housing permits were issued – the highest number since January 2010 when there were 50. Four were issued in April last year.

That brings the total to 94 for the first four months of the year.

Although it is a far cry from the boom years of the mid-2000s, when the figure occasionally topped 500 monthly and even skyrocketed to 791 in August 2005, the increase, when combined with greater activity in the existing home sales market that has occurred in recent months, shows the arrow pointing in the right direction.

An increase is taking place Valleywide said Danny Court, senior economic analyst for Elliott D. Pollack & Co., a leading economic forecasting company in Arizona.

“Most economists are forecasting as much as a 30 percent increase in total permits from 2011,” Court said.

“The total volume is still well below what we would expect a normal market to be, but certainly the percentage increase is significant. So we would expect to see Maricopa trend right along with the Valley as a whole.”