Columbus Ranks Among the Nation’s Top Permitting Metros

Despite ranking only 32nd nationally in metro population and 30th for inventory among RealPage’s top 150 apartment markets, Columbus, OH has remained in the 9th or 10th spot among the top 10 multifamily permitting markets for the past four months.

Columbus is the state capital and most populous city in the state, as well as home to The Ohio State University, the state’s flagship school. The region's resilient and diverse economy is supported by a broad mix of industries, including government, education, finance, manufacturing and health care. Job growth has been fairly robust, averaging 1.2% for the past year compared to a U.S. average of 0.8%.

That has translated into strong housing demand, with total housing permits averaging about 16,000 units in the past few months. Much of that has been for multifamily units, which overtook single-family permitting in mid-2022 and accounted for 60% of Columbus’ total units permitted in August

Columbus ranked #9 on RealPage’s August top 10 permitting list with 9,548 units, up 36% or 2,529 units from one year ago. That is the largest total for multifamily permitting in Colombus’ history. However, in year-over-year unit change, the market was fourth among the top 10 after Dallas, Orlando and Miami.

All of last month’s top 10 permitting markets returned to August’s list with the first three in order.

New York continues to lead the nation for multifamily permitting but has slowed more than 15% from last year (-4,405 units). Dallas and Houston again ranked after New York but increased permitting by about 2,000 to 5,000 units each.

Orlando jumped from #7 last month to #4 in August with a robust 49% increase in units permitted from last year. Phoenix and Austin saw annual permitting slip about one-third but remained among the top permitting markets, as did Atlanta, which slowed by 17% at the #8 spot.

Miami moved up one spot to #7 with about 10,700 units permitted, an almost 44% increase from last August. After Columbus at #9, Newark returned to the #10 spot with an almost 17% increase for the year.

Despite annual increases in six of the top 10 markets, the sum of permitted units for August’s top 10 of 129,627 units was down 0.8% for the year and 3.3% for the month.

In addition to Dallas, Orlando, Miami, Columbus, Houston and Newark, markets with significant year-over-year increases in multifamily permitting include Bridgeport-Stamford-Danbury, CT (+2,141 units), Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, AR (+1,996 units), Detroit (+1,781 units), Savannah, GA (+1,526 units) and Chicago (+1,459 units).

After Austin, Phoenix, New York and Atlanta, markets with significant year-over-year decreases in annual multifamily permitting in the year-ending August were Fort Worth (-3,187 units), Tampa (-3,009 units), Greensboro-High Point/Winston-Salem/Burlington, NC (-2,950 units), Raleigh/Durham (-2,805 units), Washington, DC (-2,687 units) and Boston (-2,137 units). Eight other markets had decreases of 1,000 units or more.

Permitting by Place

Below the metro level, all but one of last month’s top 10 permit-issuing places returned to this month’s list with the first three remaining in the same place. The list of top individual permitting places (cities, towns, boroughs and unincorporated counties) generally include the principal city of some of the most active metro areas.

The city of Columbus remained in the #1 spot in August with almost 7,500 units permitted, a decrease of almost 150 units from July’s total. The city of Miami was close behind with almost 7,400 units permitted. The New York boroughs of The Bronx and Brooklyn returned in the top four with the city of Los Angeles moving into the #5 spot from #8 in July.

Houston’s Unincorporated Harris County dropped to #6 with a decrease of almost 1,000 units from last month, while the city of Austin remained in the #7 spot again. The city of San Diego also slipped a few spots to land at #8 on this month’s top 10 permitting place list.

Orlando’s Unincorporated Orange County jumped onto this month’s list at #9, boosting annual multifamily permitting by 593 units over July’s total. Lastly, the city of Atlanta dipped one spot to #10 with almost 4,400 units permitted.

Only two of this month’s top permitting places had more units permitted for the year than last month, with an average increase of about 464 units. Conversely, the eight other top 10 places averaged a decrease of about 300 units (-2,405 units total).

Outside of the top 10 permitting places, the top 10 metros were still represented with the cities of Phoenix, Dallas and Houston among the top 20. Other top permitting places among the top 10 metros were the borough of Queens (New York), Unincorporated Travis County (Austin) and Frisco (Dallas).

This post is part of a series by RealPage Senior Real Estate Economist Chuck Ehmann analyzing residential permits and starts data from the U.S. Census Bureau. For more on this data, read previous posts in the Permits series.