New Building Permits Hit 13-Year High, Suggesting Robust US Economy....(Winning)

theepochtimes ^ | 2/19/2020 | TOM OZIMEK

[caww]

New building permits surged to a near 13-year high, pointing to sustained housing market strength amidst a period of continuing economic expansion in the United States that is the longest in recorded history.

Permits to build new homes in the United States soared 9.2 percent to a rate of 1.551 million units in January, the Commerce Department said on Feb. 19, which is the highest level since March 2007.

In another sign of housing sector strength, builder confidence in the housing market remained buoyant in February, according to the latest National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Housing Market Index (HMI), with the last three monthly sentiment readings hitting its highest levels since December 2017.

[fireman15]

House of Mercy Islamic Cemetery in Covington, WA.

[Grampa Dave]

The biggest thing keeping a lid on housing starts is the lack of skilled labor.

This is why more and more new houses are being built in factories. Modular homes are the future. Not stick built on site. This is also true for many commercial buildings. For example, there is a company that builds most of the Marriot Courtyard building in the western US. They build the modules in a factory in Boise. Then the components are shipped to the jobsite and assembled there. The crew stays in a local hotel during the assembly stage.

You are correct on both points.

We are seeing the modular approach with all types of housing, hotels, office buildings and whatever.

[Grampa Dave]

What you describe below has been happening since mankind created a society of workers and ???.

The Pareto principle:

Demystifying the 80/20 rule: How to apply it to workplace productivity
Dec 2, 2014 • Nada Aldahleh

The 80/20 rule (also known as the Pareto principle) is a well-known rule used across different fields. In simple terms, the 80/20 rule states that for many events roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. For example 80% of your profits come from 20% of your customers, 80% of your bugs come from 20% of your code, 80% of the crashes come from 20% of the drivers, etc. This phenomena has been observed across many unrelated fields including business, economics, software, health & safety and others. Isn’t it interesting how one rule can apply across so many unrelated fields?

The Discovery:
The Pareto principle was named after the man who discovered it, Vilferdo Pareto (1848-1923), an Italian economist and sociologist. He first observed the 80/20 rule when researching and analyzing wealth and income distribution trends in Europe. He noted that broadly 20% of the people owned 80% of the wealth. He also then realized that this ‘predictable imbalance’ can be extended to illustrate that, for example, 10% would own 63% of the wealth, and 5% would own 40% of the wealth. Mathematically, the 80-20 rule represents an example of a power law distribution (also known as a Pareto distribution) for a particular set of parameters.

[Grampa Dave]

Around here the more you pay for a remodel, and that includes labor costs, the more your assessment and property taxes soar.

That probably applies to all 57 states in Obama’s era and now the 50 states with President Trump.

[USS Alaska]

I am so tired of all this winning. sigh

[woodbutcher1963]

That is true in volume or actual starts.
However, the fastest growing state is Idaho.
This is primarily people leaving California and Washington state. The prices in Boise and Coeur D’Alene have gone up dramatically in the last two years.

The exit from CA is having a effect on all the western states. They are also seeing an influx to. Mostly of either really poor people from south of the border or really rich people taking jobs in the silicon valley area. Its the middle class of CA that is leaving.

It is similar to the exodus from CT, NY, NJ and IL is having back east.