With a $10,000 state tax credit propelling sales of finished but empty new houses, home builders in Sacramento and across California marked their biggest February-to-March percentage jump in single-family home starts in at least four years.
Sacramento-area home builders requested local government permits to start 198 single-family homes in March - 60 percent more than in February, the Construction Industry Research Board reported Friday.
By comparison, there was a 25 percent increase from February to March in 2008, a 13 percent increase in 2007 and a 7.2 percent decrease in 2006. Figures for prior years were not immediately available.
Statewide, home builders started 37.3 percent more single-family homes in March than February. That, too, beat the percentage gains of 2006 and 2007, and was well above a 17 percent gain at the same time last year.
While the percentage gains were impressive, the number of newly started homes, apartments and condominiums in California - 3,317 in March - still foretells the fewest home starts in California this year since record keeping began in 1954, said the California Building Industry Association.
Nonetheless, Robert Rivinius, president and chief executive officer of the home-builder trade group, called the spring bounce a signal that builders area gaining confidence.
Some of the strongest growth in residential starts was in San Diego, up 509 percent in March from February. Builders started 524 homes, apartments and condos there.
Rivinius attributed the confidence to a $10,000 state tax credit for new-homebuyers that he said has helped builders sell finished but vacant homes across the state. Builders in the Sacramento region had an inventory of 829 finished but unsold homes available at the end of March, according to Houston-based industry consultant Metrostudy.
That's about half of the number sitting empty a year ago, it said in a report this week.
The California Franchise Tax Board said Friday that 4,199 buyers have applied for $40.8 million in state tax credits since the program began March 1. That's 41 percent of state funds allocated for the credit, and Rivinius urged state lawmakers Friday to approve a new round of funding.
"It's having the desired effect of stimulating home buying, which in turn, will generate construction, meaning tax revenues for the state and local government while putting people back to work," he said in a statement.
--Call The Sacramento Bee's Jim Wasserman, (916) 321-1102 or email him at [email protected]. Read his blog on real estate, Home Front, at www.sacbee.com/blogs.