Four cities in Texas, three in North Carolina and two in South Carolina are nine of the seventeen housing markets where permits over the last year are double or more the national average of permits per population. El Paso continues to have the most intense housing development at 3.8 times the national average of permits per population. Among the other eight cities, Little Rock and Baton Rouge are nearby Texas and Augusta and Nashville are near the Carolinas. Omaha and Des Moines are nearby each other in the central plains. Provo, UT is the only large housing market with intense development that is not in the Texas, Carolina or central plains growth areas.
All of these cities are attracting new workers and businesses because of their low cost. Each of them has positive net immigration from elsewhere in the US in recent years through 2009 which likely is continuing. Also, each of these cities had a relatively mild housing recession. Home price declines were very low because there was very little price surge in 2004-06. In turn, there was little priced surge because the use of subprime mortgages was small and permitting was relatively quick and inexpensive so the housing supply was not seriously constrained.
Only 15 local markets now have more building permits in the last three months than during the peak of the housing boom in late 2005–early 2006. San Jose is the only large city. San Jose was still recovering from the previous recession in 2004–06 so had no housing boom. Strong recovery in technology markets is now driving the housing recovery.
Housing permit issuance in most of the large housing markets is well below the housing peak level and continues to ebb lower apart from the brief surge and collapse of permits caused by the homeowner tax credit.