Texas and Florida Lead the U.S. in Single-Family Building Permits Pulled Through June

On a nationwide basis, the number of building permits are running far behind activity in the housing industry’s better years. Comparatively high interest rates, challenges with land acquisition and the lackluster home sales have all tamped down building activity.
But some Sunbelt metros are bucking this trend and are seeing a huge amount of residential construction. Much of that activity is concentrated in a handful of markets.  The Top 10 markets account for 132,709 of the nation’s 514,728 single-family building permits pulled through June 2024 — 23% of the total.
Some very familiar metros are leaders in single-family permits through June, with six of the Top 10 in either Texas or Florida. Houston (27,824 permits) and Dallas (25,059 permits)  are the top two, with 52,883 single- family permits between them. Those two metros each have more building permits individually than any state except for Texas, Florida, California, North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona.
The other Florida and Texas metros leading the nation in single-family building permits are Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX (1,810 permits ); Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL (8,080 permits); and Jacksonville, FL (7,005 permits). Phoenix, Atlanta and Charlotte were the other markets that logged 10,000 permits year-to-date in June.
Many of the largest markets also had the biggest increases (see chart below). Phoenix is up over 5,000 permits year-over-year and Dallas is up by more than 4,400 permits. Wilmington, NC, is a bit of a wild card with an increase of 2,748 permits.  Other metros with sizeable increases include Houston (2,699 permits); and Atlanta (1,709).