A huge jump in the number of building permits for residential units authorized by local governments in June led the University of San Diego Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate’s Index of Leading Economic Indicators for San Diego County to its highest level in about 17 years, Professor Alan Gin said Friday.
The rise of 0.8 percent last month — helped also by increases in the outlook for the national economy, local stock prices and consumer confidence — was the largest single-month jump in more than two years.
Gin said more than 2,100 residential construction permits were issued in June, the most since March 2005. The sector has lagged most of this year, enough so that the total number of permits issued in the first six months as a whole are still down by 16.9 percent from last year.
He said those factors overcame negative moves for unemployment and the amount of help-wanted advertising.
“This comes after a couple of months where things seemed to be flattening,” Gin said.
“As usual, caution should be exercised when dealing with a single month’s data point,” he said. “So for now, the outlook remains for a positive but slower growing local economy. This is reflected in the local job growth numbers through the first half of the year.”
The index stood at 144.4, topping the pre-recession high of 144.2 set in March 2006, according to the professor’s archives. He said the all-time high was 150.8, set in May and June 2000.
—City News Service
