Bluffs housing ends 2009 on a high note

By TIM ROHWER, Daily Nonpareil Staff Writer

Council Bluffs housing ended 2009 on a high note - at least when 2009 is compared to the previous year.
There were 126 permits issued for single-family home construction in 2009, up from 121 the year before, according to year-end totals from the city’s Building Division. These figures are far lower than those during the middle part of the past decade when housing permits were nearly double the number recorded last year, but 2009 was the first year since 2005 that permits exceeded the previous year.

The 2009 permits were for homes more toward the upper end of the scale. The valuation for the 126 homes for which permits were issued last year totaled $17.5 million, up from the $16 million total valuation for those for which permits were issued in 2008.

The number of permits issued was far greater in 2007, when 171 permits were issued, yet all those totaled only slightly more in valuation at $20.8 million, than this past year.

“Our growth has been pretty good now,” said Lloyd Banks, a local builder. “It seems we’re coming out of the recession better than expected.”

He credited lower unemployment in this area as a factor in the bright picture.

Another builder, Jay Kathol, added that stimulus tax credit programs have indeed stimulated home construction and buying. For example, there’s the $8,000 tax credit program for first-time homebuyers, as well as a $6,500 tax credit for people who may want to move up after living in their current home for at least five years.

“There’s a lot of good things going on in the real estate market,” Kathol said.

Of the 18 homes Banks is building, six have already been sold, he said.

Construction workers, if not building new homes, were busy at least adding on to existing homes, according to the figures.

There were 96 permits issued in 2009 for residential additions, lower than the 127 issued in 2008, but higher than the numbers issued in 2005 through 2007. There were 1,090 permits issued for residential alterations last year, down from the 1,678 figure the previous year but far greater than the 2007 number of 398.

In terms of commercial/industrial construction, the news in 2009 wasn’t quite as good. There were just 20 permits issued for new construction in this category, compared to the 42 issued the year before and 55 in 2007.

Altogether, there were 3,915 total permits issued last year for all classifications of construction and renovation projects. That was lower than in 2008, when 4,655 permits were issued, but higher than every year before going back to 2001.

The valuation for the 3,915 permits totaled $136.2 million with the city receiving nearly $500,000 in permit fees.