Signs that the GROWTH MACHINE is back ON?!

**BrushStart** · October-07-10, 03:10 PM

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...on-strong-note

Looks like residential building permits for the Metro area are on the rise. Thankfully, we are finally going to start building up our housing stock. There's plenty of need for new Pulte's given the limited number of vacant foreclosures across the region. It will be exciting to see all of the new subdivisions popping up west of Wixom and whatnot. We can all hope that some new freeways are built to accomodate these people.

**Detroitnerd** · October-07-10, 03:20 PM

You can be sure these are piecemeal jobs, filling in a lot in a ghost sub for retirees. Is it just me, or does the tone of the article seem to be protesting that the recovery has begun a bit too much?

DetroitPole · October-07-10, 04:30 PM

Thank G-d. We have a serious housing shortage in this region. Not to mention I expect these new homes to be of the finest craftsmanship and architectural detail. I'm equally confident these new homes will be built in communities with careful, meticulous urban planning in mind. I'm sure people around the world will look to us as an example.

**mwilbert** · October-07-10, 07:26 PM

They are talking about under 2000 permits in a year in an area that has more than a nillion households. For all intents and purposes this is negligible.

**kryptonite** · October-08-10, 08:12 AM

Hardly negligible in the sense that the numbers represent a significant increase though. And considering the large number of available vacant foreclosures the fact that new construction is happening at all in such a depressed region is significant.

In SE Michigan any positive economic indicator is a welcome sign.

**JBMcB** · October-08-10, 12:17 PM

Originally Posted by Detroitnerd

Is it just me, or does the tone of the article seem to be protesting that the recovery has begun a bit too much?

It's an incredibly dry article, I don't think there's much to read into it. An analyst says that home sales are improving, and will continue to improve. It's a good sign, but not an indication that overall localized economic output is increasing substantially.

**BrushStart** · October-16-10, 08:31 AM

http://www.detnews.com/article/20101...n-Detroit-area

Oakland County's housing permits went up 155% in September, and Macomb County led the region with an increase of 193% in building permits. The region is on track to build 3,000 new homes this year and that number could reach 5,000-6,000 if lending to builders improves.

**mwilbert** · October-16-10, 06:12 PM

You can get the permit data for the last ten years for metro counties here:

http://www.semcog.org/Data/Apps/permits.report.cfm

Can't say I'm very impressed by this current uptick. Nor do I really think it would be sensible for lenders to be encouraging people to build a lot of houses in an area that will be losing population for years to come. Of course that doesn't mean they won't do it.