The nation's housing construction pipeline is barely moving. A new analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data found that builders pulled permits for 968,187 homes nationwide between January and August 2026, an increase of just 0.05% compared with the same stretch a year earlier — essentially flat, even as housing costs continue to squeeze buyers across most of the country.
A Report That Maps Winners and Losers State By State
The figures come from an October 2026 report by the Lied Center for Real Estate at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, which compiled Census building-permit data from January through August 2026 and ranked all 50 states and Washington, D.C., according to the UNLV News Center. Nationwide, that permit total works out to about 2.83 permitted units for every 1,000 residents, as reported by Business Insider. In July, 62% of permits were for single-family homes and 34% were for buildings of five or more units, per the same report.
Nicholas Irwin, research director at the Lied Center and a coauthor of the report, said housing supply will determine prices in 18 to 24 months. Zooming out further, the report notes permits increased just 0.05% since 2025 but have actually fallen 4.1% since 2023 — a sign the slowdown predates this year.
South Carolina and Idaho Lead, Nevada Sinks
South Carolina, Idaho and North Carolina posted the highest permit rates per 1,000 residents, at least double the national average, the report found. On the other end, Alaska, Connecticut and Illinois recorded the lowest per-capita permit rates among all states. Nevada stood out for a steep decline: its permits per resident fell 29% in one year, from 12,662 to 8,986, and lagged behind the state's projected household growth, according to the UNLV News Center's own account of the findings.
Kansas told a different story. The state ranked fifth overall nationally even though it placed just 19th in permits per resident, with permits up 31% over the past year and 56% since 2023. Kansas also led the nation in permits for two- to four-unit housing, building at five times the national rate in that category, the report found. Rhode Island nearly doubled its permits per resident since 2023, climbing 93% from 775 units to 1,515, while New York's per-resident rate rose 64% over the same span.
Sun Belt Slowdown, New York's Rebound
Florida, Texas and Arizona together permitted 28,538 fewer units than they had during the same months of 2025, a notable reversal for states that have driven much of the nation's housing growth in recent years. New York moved the opposite direction, issuing 9,616 more units than a year earlier — a 46% increase, per the UNLV report. The housing types being built also varied sharply by region: Mississippi's permits were 95% single-family, while 87% of permits in Washington, D.C., and 74% in New York were for multifamily buildings.
September's national numbers, tracked separately by the Census Bureau, showed the broader slowdown continuing. Single-family building permits fell 4.0% that month to an annual rate of 845,000 units, the lowest level since March 2023, according to Reuters. Overall permits slipped 0.2% to an annual rate of 1.4 million units, even as multifamily permits bucked the trend, rising 5.9% to a rate of 503,000 units, Reuters reported.
Incomes Fall Short of Home Prices in 31 States
The construction slowdown is colliding with an affordability problem that spans most of the country. In 31 states, the median homeowner earns less than what's needed to afford a median-priced home, the report found. California's median household income was $100,800 in 2025.
Irwin said officials can allow more housing to bend the price curve down.
Irwin pointed to government tools such as streamlining permits and broadening zoning. Tracking permit growth helps estimate how much new housing may actually become available nationwide in the years ahead.
