Housing Permit Layer

When you activate the housing permit layer, all county boundaries in the United States will become visible. Hover over a boundary to view the county name, and click on any county to see its data for the past three years. To enable the housing permit layer, press "H" on your keyboard.

Once you activate the housing permit layer, a heatmap will display if the selected county falls within a CBSA (Core-Based Statistical Area) as defined by the U.S. Census. This heatmap reflects the annual housing growth percentage across the CBSA. Areas with the lowest growth percentage appear in light blue, while those with the highest are shown in dark blue. The CBSA’s range of values is displayed in the top right corner.

Below is our methodology for calculating the Annual Housing Growth percentage;

Average of implied permit value in the last 3 years/ Total # of households in the county

Radius+ is multiplying each number of permits by the implied number of units to derive the total implied number of housing units.

The number of permits recorded by BPS does not account for the number of housing units but rather the number of permits issued to build the specified number of units. For example, if a county reports 2 permits for a 5+ multifamily unit, it would mean there will potentially be 10 new housing units in that county (2 permits x 5 units).

Below is our methodology;

Single Family Units: no calculations

Multi Family 2 Units: # of permits x 2

Multi Family 3 and 4 Units: # of permits x 4

Multi Family 5+ units: # of permits x 5

The implied housing growth number intends to show the trajectory of the residential housing activity in the county. We use the implied permit value number to divide it by the number of households in the county specified by the 2020 US Census. The implied housing growth percentage is a great indicator of whether residential development activity has been trending upwards or downwards in recent years.

Below is our methodology;

Implied Permit Value/ # of Households in the County