Single-Family Permit Share
The share of newly authorized housing units that are in one-unit structures.
Not shown in the tool. The data behind this family is held and kept current, but it is not one of the measures the tool offers. Geography: permit-issuing place, county, metro area
The share of newly authorized housing units that are in one-unit structures.
The Census Bureau's single-family statistics "include fully detached, semidetached (semiattached, side-by-side), row houses, and townhouses. In the case of attached units, each must be separated from the adjacent unit by a ground-to-roof wall in order to be classified as a single-family structure. Also, these units must not share heating/air-conditioning systems or utilities" (Building Permits Survey definitions). Units built one on top of another, and side-by-side units without a ground-to-roof wall or with shared facilities, are counted as multifamily instead.
A townhouse therefore counts as single-family here even though it may look and trade nothing like a detached house on a lot. The distinction the survey draws is structural, not about tenure, ownership or price.
This measure describes the composition of what a place is authorizing, not how much of it. Two places with identical permit shares can differ by an order of magnitude in permit volume, so it is usually read alongside Permit Activity Rate.
Metrics in this family#
Considerations#
Annual figures run from 2013 and monthly figures from January 2020, in both cases through the most recent release. Publication lags the present, and recent periods can move as late reports arrive.
Single-family share and multifamily share are complements of the same total: every authorized unit falls into one or the other, so the two shares sum to one. They are two readings of one fact, not two independent pieces of evidence.
The denominator is authorized units, not built units. A share can shift because one type of construction stalled at the permit stage rather than because intentions changed.
Where a place authorizes very few units in a period, the share rests on a small denominator and is unstable. A single detached house can move it many percentage points.
Nonresponding permit offices are imputed by the Bureau, and imputation is carried out separately for single-family and multifamily structure types (methodology). The mix of a place with sparse reporting therefore reflects regional relationships as well as its own activity.
The survey covers only privately-owned new residential construction, and excludes manufactured (mobile) homes. In markets where manufactured housing is a meaningful share of new supply, the composition shown here is not the composition of all new homes.
Permits are published for places, counties and metro areas, not tracts. See how we combine geographies.
References#
- 1Building Permits Survey definitionshttps://www.census.gov/construction/bps/definitions.html
- 2Building Permits Survey Methodologyhttps://www.census.gov/construction/bps/methodology.html