Local home building picked up in August, but foreclosure filings still ahead of last year
The pace of home building improved again last month in the Colorado Springs area, although foreclosure filings continued at a record clip.
According to reports released Tuesday by the Pikes Peak Regional Building Department and the El Paso County Public Trustee’s Office:
• Single-family home building permits in El Paso County totaled 111 in August, a 42.3 percent gain from the 78 permits issued during the same month in 2008. It was the third straight month permits increased from the same time a year earlier, breaking a 3 1/2-year stretch of monthly declines. The federal government’s $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers is one reason for the uptick, building industry officials say.
Home construction is a closely watched barometer of the local economy. The industry employs thousands of people and several builders, contractors and subcontractors have laid off workers in response to the construction slowdown.
Also, local governments with sales taxes rely on the purchase of building materials to generate tax revenue they use for police, fire and other basic services. As home building has slowed, so have those revenues and governments have cut services as a result.
Home building still has a ways to go before it rebounds, however. In the first eight months of 2009, single-family permits totaled 747, down 22.1 percent from 959 during the same period last year.
• El Paso County foreclosure filings totaled 444 in August, up 76 percent from the same month a year ago.
Through the first eight months of the year, filings — the start of the foreclosure process that can lead to the loss of a home — totaled 3,653, which exceeds the total number of filings for all of 2007.
One piece of good news: the number of releases — property owners who avoided foreclosure by selling their home, refinancing or paying off their loan — totaled 4,542. It was the fifth straight month releases topped 4,000.
