February Residential Permit Snapshot

Hi everyone, below are the updated permit numbers through February.

Single Family

For single family homes, the monthly total of 2,810 was more than double the count from a year ago while the trailing 12-month number of 27,816 is just above the average since 2000 (26,206). The monthly number is also above both the 6 and 12-month averages meaning we are still in a rising market when it comes to homebuilding.

On the Wall Street front, XHB (SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF) is still at an all-time high, showing the optimism we’ve been referring to is still alive and well. Current price is $111.35, which has rallied off of the Q3 ‘23 dip to $69.36.

Multifamily

Multifamily permits back off to 1,147, which was less than half the monthly count from a year ago. The trailing12-month count came in at 20,980, a retreat from the November ‘23 peak of 23,024 but 2.4x the long-term average of 8,690. That long-term average broken down into a monthly would be 724 permits. So even at this lower monthly, we’re still well above the historical norm.

The FTSE NAREIT Equity Apartments Index had a little jump at the end of February/beginning of March but failed to surpass its most recent high from 12/28/23. It has dueling trends with higher lows but lower highs. We should have a better idea by the end of May which trend will win out.

Combined

The combined trailing 12-month permit count rose 10.58% over the previous year and 0.5% over last month. The increase in single family permits was offset by the decrease in multifamily. With the single-family count hovering around its long-term average, the well above average combined count be attributed to the still elevated multifamily numbers.

Thanks for reading, as always, please reach out with anything we can help you with. (Except after 4:00 today while our Wildcats take on Clemson in the Sweet 16)

Bear Down,

John & Ramey