Quoted in today's SF Chronicle story on the housing rebound

A story in the San Francisco Chronicle on the Bay Area's housing rebound was published today online, and will be featured in print for tomorrow's Sunday paper. A few takeaways:

Consider this: In both 2005 and 2006, builders pulled permits for about 15,000 new homes a year in the San Francisco metropolitan area (the counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo), a little more than half of them being single-family houses and the rest apartments or condos. In 2009, just 3,550 permits were issued. By 2011 it was up to about 5,800....

As of August, builders have already taken out about 5,800 permits this year - as many as in all of last year - putting them on track to exceed last year's total by 50 percent. The San Jose metro area (the counties of Santa Clara and San Benito) had an even deeper plunge, going from roughly 6,000 new permits a year to only 1,100 in 2009. This year, it is on track for about 5,800 permits - almost back to its boom-time levels....

Patrick Duffy, principal at home-building consultant MetroIntelligence Real Estate Advisors, said he predicts that next year will see builders break ground on 800,000 to 1 million new homes nationwide, following this year's projected 600,000.

"House building has a big multiplier effect" on the economy, he said. "That's why we've been dragging along. Now housing is starting to pick up; that's a nice annual bump. It's really hopeful, but there's still some economic uncertainty out there."

You can read the entire story by clicking here.