Boom in condos keeps builders going

[meshugy]

New house permits were down in King County and the state as a whole in the first quarter of 2007, compared with the first three months of 2006, according to U.S. Census data.

But the total number of homes permitted went up thanks to an increase in apartments and condos, particularly in Seattle.

Crellin attributed the state's housing situation to "strong underlying economics" and said King County is stronger than the state as a whole because it is Washington's job center.

While last quarter's prices were higher than those in the second and third quarters of 2006, homes were actually , according to the report's affordability index.

[Lionel]

Keep building, you morons! SRS up 2.59 today! You might not be figuring it out, Shug, but the market is.

[Denny Retrograde]

As one commenter on the P-I site noted, these US Census figures are for permit approvals, not applications, so there's a year or more lag in measuring developer interest. Anyone know how to track multi-fam applications for this quarter vs. last year's Q1? That'd show more what the present mood is. Thanks.

[mike2]

Those #'s from D+S seem to indicate we're going to be swimming in inventory for the next few years. Interesting times. Can't say I'm totally surprised. The recent residential building boom is beyond anything I've seen happen at one time around here.

On the other hand, with the bad luck(?) some developers are having, like over at NoMa, these buildings may never make it to market as finished units.

[deejayoh]

[B]

walking through Cap Hill, I'm a little shocked by all the condo conversions going on (still).

The last couple years were pretty good times if you had an old building to unload - but what astounds me is that some people seem to have just heard about the party.

Lots of buildings that were formerly desirable as apartments getting flipped as condominiums - let's look and see what happened in other cities (in some cases, years ago). Something tells me no small number of these will be rentals again in the near term.

There's more supply coming online than just new projects. A lot more.

[deejayoh]

Yeah, I live on Capitol Hill too. Check out this link for a list of permits!

[B]

Bring on the inventory, I say.

It's going to be interesting watching these morons race against the clock to churn out these units.