Home Construction Up 14% Last Year

New home construction in Connecticut rose by 14 percent in 2014, with single-family houses leading the way, a new report Wednesday shows.

Permits for single-family houses, condominiums and apartment units rose to 4,603 last year, compared with 4,027 for 2013. The levels of building were the highest since 2008, when 4,910 housing units were authorized by cities and towns, according to the report from the state Department of Economic and Community Development.

Norton C. Wheeler III, president of the Home Builders & Remodelers Association of Connecticut, said Wednesday that new residential construction last year showed promising gains, though there is still a way to in the industry's recovery in the state.

"This is the highest since 2008, but make no mistake that it is still less than half of what we were doing in 2004," Wheeler, owner of the Mystic River Building Co. in Mystic, said. "We're all surprised at the slow pace of the recovery, but the most important part is that we are recovering."

Wheeler noted that construction of single-family houses led the way, followed by building of multifamily structures with five or more units. Two years ago, it was just the opposite, amid a boom in rentals.

Wheeler said rising rental rates are starting to make homeownership more attractive, especially for first-time home buyers.

"Builders are starting to gain confidence themselves that there is a market for the single-family home," Wheeler said.

New home construction fell to a decades low in 2011 but turned around the next year. The levels are still well below the 9,000 to 10,000 units a year that Connecticut's residential construction industry considers a healthy building market.

Wednesday's report is based on a monthly survey of 128 municipalities conducted by the U.S. Census. Once a year, all 169 towns and cities are surveyed for an annual tally.

Typically, monthly and annual counts have closely tracked each other in past years, but that wasn't the case in 2013. The monthly survey showed a decline of 2.7 percent and the annual tally showed a gain of 16.2 percent.

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Home Construction Up 14% Last Year