By Fred Seely, Editor
If 2007 was the end of the boom, then another boom may have started this year.
Building permits issued in Northeast Florida may reach the 6,000 mark when the final tally is made early in 2014.
Statistics from the Northeast Florida Builders Association show there were 5,133 permits issued through October. And it's more than possible, based on previous years, that at least the 867 needed will be added in November and December.
The last 6,000-plus year was 2007 when 6,830 permits were issued. The decline started the next year and bottomed out in 2011 with 3,151.
Even if the 6,000 ceiling is broken, the next benchmarks will come much later in numbers going back to 2002. In that year, 9,075 were issued.
And the top number in the period is very distant: 17,753 in 2005.
Meanwhile, real estate sales continued on a solid path through October.
Positive news for the year continued as NEFAR's October statistics showed closed sales are up 22.6 percent so far this year, even though they are down from a year ago. There were 1,492 closed sales in October compared to 1,597 in October 2012.
It was the only weak link in a chain of upward moves in the market.
• Pending sales were up 25.8 percent for the year and 28.7 percent for the month.
• The median sales price of $158,865 was up 16.4 percent over last October.
• The 81 days a listing stayed on the market was 27.7 percent better than the previous year.
• New listings — there were 2,676 — were 20.6 percent higher.
• Total inventory was down 14.9 percent and the supply has lessened to 4.8 months.
The uptick is a national story, too.
• Building permits rose 6.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual number of 1.034 million units in October due primarily to a double-digit increase on the multifamily side, the U.S. Census Bureau reported last month. The October numbers follow a 5.2 percent increase in permits in September to 974,000 units.
• Sales of newly built, single-family homes rose 25.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 444,000 units in October, according to data released last month by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Census Bureau. All four regions posted double-digit sales gains: Sales rose 19.2 percent in the Northeast, 34 percent in the Midwest, 28.2 percent in the South and 15.2 percent in the West.
• Mortgage giant Freddie Mac is expecting a good 2014 for housing and its economists predict a much stronger economic recovery will take hold next year, "led by a resurgent housing sector," according to Freddie Mac's November U.S. Economic & Housing Market Outlook report. "Despite rising interesting rates and home values, Freddie Mac economists believe "housing will remain generally affordable in most parts of the country."