Home Remodeling Permits Holding Their Own

Residential permits have increased more than 10 times in the past 3 years!

By Justin HarrisBusiness Development Director

Residential remodeling is taking on a larger portion of the local construction industry. Building permits issued in the Southern Utah area from Iron & Washington counties indicate that in the last 3 years, the percentage of market attributed to the remodeling industry has been increasing.

"As the new construction numbers continue to remain low, the number of remodeling permits has remained quite steady. This confirms what our contractor clients have been telling us, that in order to remain competitive and productive during these difficult times, their focus has turned to the remodeling industry to help keep their people working", reports Justin Harris of Construction Monitor.

In 2006 the total residential building permit dollar values came in at just over $580 million with remodeling accounting for $8.1 million or only 1.4% of the permit values. 2007 showed a total of $503 million with remodels share increasing to $15.7 million or 3.13% of permit values. Last years numbers saw additional increases in market share with remodeling coming in at 6.7% of the residential permit totals with $14.9 million in an industry that dropped to $219 million for the total residential permit values for the year.

Editor's Note: The author is employed at the Construction Monitor, which organization has been actively tracking the building permits in Southern Utah (and allround the western United States) since 1992. Information from this company provides an interesting contrast to government generated statistics because of its closer to `real time data` posture. For more information visit them at www.constructionmonitor.com