Single-family homes see rise in construction

Single-family home-building activity for January is up substantially in the Twin Cities, according to statistics compiled by the Keystone Report for the Builders Association of the Twin Cities.

The association's President Rich Riemersma said these numbers are a strong indicator of a trend.

"The good news is the single-family number seems to be going up and increasing," Riemersma said. "From January of last year to January of this year, we're up like 8 percent, and if you really go back to 2009, we're up like 61 percent."

Fewer multi-family units were permitted in January, which made the total number of permitted units lower than the same time last year.

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Riemersma said recent economic gains are fueling more optimism about home-building prospects in 2011.

"With the stock market rising, I think there's a little more sense of security for people, and so maybe they feel more comfortable doing something versus a few years ago when they didn't really know where things were at," said Riemersma.

Still, Riemersma notes that home-building's recovery will be long. He said even though builders are getting busier, they're not necessarily hiring more workers yet.

The dollar value of the permits pulled in January also was lower than the same month last year, and down a dramatic 63 percent from the same time four years earlier. That means companies are building fewer, smaller projects.