{"id":10507,"date":"2017-12-18T18:34:07","date_gmt":"2017-12-18T18:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/?p=10507"},"modified":"2018-08-07T21:16:41","modified_gmt":"2018-08-07T21:16:41","slug":"buildzoom-research-a-year-in-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/buildzoom-research-a-year-in-review","title":{"rendered":"BuildZoom Research: A Year in Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As 2017 comes to an end, we decided to round up some of our favorite studies and reports from the past year. We use public data as well as data from <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/map\/nation-wide\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">BuildZoom\u2019s <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">national building permit database<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to better understand the construction market, and this year our work fell into two broad categories: <\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Research concerning urban growth and housing affordability, and how they relate to construction and housing supply. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reports on individual construction projects from across the country that we believe are particularly interesting to the public. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Urban Growth and Housing Affordability Research<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In order to keep housing prices in check, a metropolitan area\u2019s housing supply must keep up with the demand for living there. We began studying the housing supply in 2016 \u00a0by focusing on its relationship to metropolitan expansion. Two studies which examine the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/cities-expansion-slowing\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">expansion<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/can-cities-compensate-for-curbing-sprawl-by-growing-denser\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">densification<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of U.S. metros conclude that, while the large and growing metros of the South are able to maintain housing affordability by continuing to expand their developed footprint, the expensive coastal metros face an affordability crisis because, since the early 1970s, they have slowed down the pace of expansion while failing to compensate for it with greater housing density. In so doing, the former group of metros have channeled their economic strength into population growth, whereas the latter have channeled it into housing price appreciation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/urban-geography-vacant-lots-and-the-stunted-recovery-of-new-home-construction\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">another study<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, we related the sluggish recovery of new home construction since the last decade\u2019s housing bust to its location inside metro areas. Among other insights, the study suggests that the shortage of lots which developers raise as an impediment is actually a matter of perception, driven by the increasing draw to build in locations deeper in the metropolitan interior, where vacant lots are in fact more scarce.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the Wall Street Journal\u2019s request, we ranked the metro areas and zip codes in which it is <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/the-toughest-places-to-build-behind-the-scenes-of-a-wall-street-journal-analysis\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">toughest to build<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. We discovered that the toughest places to build are not in downtowns but in the innermost suburbs. The demand for living in the innermost suburbs is high, but the ability to build new homes there is more constrained than in downtown because raising the housing density is generally not allowed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/paying-for-dirt-where-have-home-values-detached-from-construction-costs\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Paying For Dirt<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is the name we chose for a study in which we examined the relationship between home values and construction costs. The study explains what can be learned from a discrepancy between the two, or a lack thereof. Because the study drills down to the zip code level, it helps identify areas in which restricted housing supply is excluding people, even inside metros which are otherwise affordable. The following map, for example, shows that even the laissez-faire Houston metro area has districts in which unrestricting the housing supply by allowing greater density would prevent exclusion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Houston-The-Woodlands-TX-CSA_2016_between_Val_to_CC_ratio.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-10307 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Houston-The-Woodlands-TX-CSA_2016_between_Val_to_CC_ratio.png\" alt=\"Houston Home Value to Replacement Cost _ Urban Growth BuildZoom\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2046\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Houston-The-Woodlands-TX-CSA_2016_between_Val_to_CC_ratio.png 2000w, https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Houston-The-Woodlands-TX-CSA_2016_between_Val_to_CC_ratio-293x300.png 293w, https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Houston-The-Woodlands-TX-CSA_2016_between_Val_to_CC_ratio-768x786.png 768w, https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Houston-The-Woodlands-TX-CSA_2016_between_Val_to_CC_ratio-1001x1024.png 1001w, https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Houston-The-Woodlands-TX-CSA_2016_between_Val_to_CC_ratio-1955x2000.png 1955w, https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Houston-The-Woodlands-TX-CSA_2016_between_Val_to_CC_ratio-32x32.png 32w, https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Houston-The-Woodlands-TX-CSA_2016_between_Val_to_CC_ratio-50x50.png 50w, https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Houston-The-Woodlands-TX-CSA_2016_between_Val_to_CC_ratio-64x64.png 64w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The State of California, whose coastal cities suffer from some of the worst housing affordability in the nation, recently passed legislation intended to increase the housing supply by easing the way for new \u201cAccessory Dwelling Units\u201d (ADUS), also known as in-law units or granny flats. To help inform the public, we compiled a plain-language guide to the legislation and examined <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/adus\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">building permit numbers for ADUs<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the City of San Francisco. We found that permits spiked immediately following the last piece of legislation, and we will need to revisit the subject after some time has gone by for it to play out further.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Influential Construction Projects<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">BuildZoom\u2019s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/map\/nation-wide\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">national building permit database<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> contains more than 120 million permits. It provides us with unique insights about the construction market and helps us keep a pulse on interesting construction projects that are underway across the nation &#8211; from local restaurant openings to new permits being filed for Tesla&#8217;s Gigafactory. Our two favorite stories from this year involve Apple Park and Amazon\u2019s Seattle HQ1. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/what-it-takes-to-build-apple-park\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Apple Park<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> we estimated the permit-based cost for each of the 15 major structures and determined that the total &#8211; a lower-bound for the actual cost of the project &#8211; was $1.15 billion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Apple-Park-Map-1-copy.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-10168 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Apple-Park-Map-1-copy.png\" alt=\"BuildZoom Apple Park Construction Permit Analysis\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1269\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Apple-Park-Map-1-copy.png 2000w, https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Apple-Park-Map-1-copy-300x190.png 300w, https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Apple-Park-Map-1-copy-768x487.png 768w, https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Apple-Park-Map-1-copy-1024x650.png 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After the announcement of Amazon\u2019s quest for building a second headquarters, dubbed HQ2, we took a look at <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/amazon-hq2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Amazon\u2019s current presence in Seattle<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Our report shows that since Amazon\u2019s big move to the South Lake Union area in 2007, over $1.9 billion in building permits have been filed for nearly 13.6 million feet of present and future Amazon-occupied office space in the Seattle metro area.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Amazon-Time-Lapse.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-10421 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Amazon-Time-Lapse.gif\" alt=\"Seattle Amazon Footprint Analysis BuildZoom\" width=\"987\" height=\"1012\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2><b>There\u2019s more\u2026<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In addition to the main themes, this year we also studied how <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/renewal-of-the-existing-housing-stock-depends-on-home-sales\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the timing of residential renovation relates to home sales<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and what factors underpin the intense <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/having-shed-young-workers-the-construction-industry-needs-change\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">shortage of construction labor<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that is hampering the industry. Last but not least, last week we released a new study examining the flow of people in and out of the San Francisco Bay Area in collaboration with <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.spur.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SPUR.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the coming year we shall continue our exploration of construction-related themes, and we look forward to sharing our insights with you. Stay tuned!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As 2017 comes to an end, we decided to round up some of our favorite studies and reports from the past year. We use public data as well as data from BuildZoom\u2019s national building permit database to better understand the construction market, and this year our work fell into two broad categories: Research concerning urban [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3005,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58,7],"tags":[561,550,507,428,560,552,562],"class_list":["post-10507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-analysis","category-buildzoom","tag-analysis","tag-city-planning","tag-construction-projects","tag-housing-affordability","tag-research","tag-urban-growth","tag-urban-planning","entry","has-post-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3005"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10507\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}