While the overall U.S. housing market has slowed down a little bit in recent months from the rapid growth it had been enjoying over the past year or two, some market areas are still enjoying a real surge in home-building.
Some of the largest metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in the United States are logging some impressive numbers in terms of building permits issued year-to-date (YDD) through Aug. 2014, with Houston-Baytown-Sugar Land TX (26,490); Dallas-Ft. Worth-Arlington TX (15,310); Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta GA (11,590); Washington-Arlington-Alexandria DC-VA-MD-WV (8,720); Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale AZ (8,340); and Austin-Round Rock TX (8,000); leading the pack.
But there’s another important way to look at the health of an MSA’s housing market. The “Housing Hotness Index” factors in the number of building permits issued per 1,000 residents in an MSA, which allows you to compare market areas of all sizes on the relative strength of their housing market when compared to their overall population.
Using that measure, which was popularized years ago by Builder magazine and U.S. Housing Markets, you will find the names of some smaller MSAs that you wouldn’t necessarily think of as housing leaders, like the Wilmington, N.C., or Victoria Texas metros, which rank as #1 and #5 in the Housing Hotness Index. Check out the other MSAs in Electrical Wholesaling’s Top 25 Hot Housing Markets.