Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Article in January 15, 2007 Detroit Free Press

New housing permits sharply decline in southeast Michigan

January 15, 2007

BY JOHN GALLAGHER

FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER

A weak housing market led to a sharp drop in home-building activity in metro Detroit in 2006, year-end statistics show.

A report from the private firm Housing Consultants Inc. of Clarkston showed that builders took out 48% fewer permits in 2006 than in 2005 for a nine-county Southeast Michigan region.

The decline in new building echoes the plunge in sales of existing houses in metro Detroit in the past year and a half.

The slowdown in residential real estate sales and new building has affected many other regions nation, too. But metro Detroit’s economic problems have seen home prices here fall at the sharpest rate in the country.

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