NYC Residential Building Permit Comparison

REBNY Research department (Real Estate Board of New York) compared the peak year for housing production (new units of housing permitted) before the recession (generally 2005-2008) in New York, San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, and Washington D.C. with their housing production in 2013. 
 
New York City has by far the largest population and the most housing units of any of these major U.S. cities.

Of these five cities, New York is the only city whose production has not reached its pre-recession peak.  However, building permit levels are on the rise in NYC for 2014, up almost 2,500 units from the same time last year.  

If NYC experiences the same level of increase in building permits in the second half of 2014 as it did in 2013, its annual total will compare positively with the average annual new housing unit permits we achieved in the last decade.  The last decade was the highest annual average in thirty years.