New home construction in central Ohio ready to rebound

Housing The Bottom Line Other Business Features Local Stories from ThisWeek More Articles By Jim Weiker The Columbus Dispatch Sunday July 20, 2014 5:48 AM

For homebuilders, market conditions seem ideal: The demand for homes is up, prices are on the rise, and the number of existing homes for sale is down.

Why, then, are so few new homes being built?

Central Ohio home construction is off 9 percent so far this year compared with a year ago when the housing industry appeared to be starting to recover from a devastating crash.

With the industrys annual Parade of Homes now underway in Delaware County, builders say they are busy and optimistic. Two issues, though, have prevented them from fully capitalizing on rising consumer demand.

First, very little central Ohio land has been cleared, rezoned and platted for subdivisions during the past several years. In addition, lenders burned by the crash have kept builders on a short leash, preventing them from trying to get ahead of demand by building homes without buyers.

Adding to the challenges is a lingering nervousness from the housing recession, during which central Ohio home construction dropped by more than 80 percent from a peak of 11,693 in 2003 to a trough of 2,432 in 2011, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Theres a bit of an adjustment in the industry now, said Tim Shear, vice president of custom-home builder Coppertree Homes. The most important word is the B word: balance. You want to grow but not get too big that you cant manage.

Nonetheless, larger builders are jockeying to position themselves for what they see as optimum conditions for growth.

Were all talking to the same landowners, said Jon Jasper, who manages the Columbus region of the Cincinnati homebuilder Fischer Homes. Every builder who has the capacity to develop is knocking on doors.

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New home construction in central Ohio ready to rebound