Permits for New Home Construction Drop

Rainy weather put a damper on the state’s new home construction in January, with the number of permits declining 6% from the year before and a whopping 29% from December, a trade group reported.

A total of 13,775 permits were issued in January, the California Building Industry Assn. said. Of those, 9,749 were for single-family units, and the rest for apartments and condos.

December was an unusually strong month for housing starts, when 19,334 permits were issued. That helped make 2004 the best year for new construction in the state since 1989. In all, 210,000 permits were issued last year.

Despite the weather-related setback in January, the builder group still expects starts in 2005 to be close to 2004’s levels.