Orange County Dip Causes Cut in Home Starts

California housing production--as measured by building permits for new housing--fell by 6.3% in July from June.

The decline was attributed to June’s accelerated taking of permits for single-family houses in Orange County and a continued drop in multifamily housing starts, The survey by the Construction Industry Research Board showed that new single-family housing units fell by 8.4% and multifamily units were down by 2.3%. The latter were down by 30.7% from July, 1987, but single-family starts were up 28.4% from July, 1987, according to Ben Bartolotto of the Burbank-based CIRB.

New housing permits totaled 245,300 on a seasonally adjusted annual basis in July, down 6.3% from June’s 261,900. Bartolotto said that Orange County’s near-record 2,304 June single-family permits dropped to only 174 in July, after a growth-control initiative was defeated at the polls.