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While multifamily permitting is dropping below pre-pandemic levels across the country, Connecticut is continuing to see a steady number of permits being issued. And two of its biggest metro areas are actually seeing more housing construction.

In Fairfield County and Greater Hartford, the current number of permits issued per 10,000 people is higher than pandemic and pre-pandemic levels according to a Redfin analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data covering building permits for multifamily units in buildings with five or more units.

Hartford actually saw a 102 percent increase in 2024 compared to pandemic levels, which is the third-largest percentage increase in the 78 U.S. Metros with populations of at least 750,000 that Redfin analyzed.

But in the New Haven metro, permits per 10,000 people are down across these two time frames.

Redfin Senior Economist Sheharyar Bokhari said in a statement that a slowdown in multifamily projects in a metro area could lead to rents increasing.

“New apartments are being rented out at the slowest speed on record and builders are pumping the brakes because elevated interest rates are making many projects prohibitively expensive,” Bokhari said. “At some point in the next year, the slowdown in building will mean that renters have fewer options—potentially leading to an increase in rents.”

Developers obtained permits to build 12.4 multifamily housing units for every 10,000 people in the U.S. over the past year, which is down 27.1 percent from the pandemic and down 5.5 percent from before the pandemic. Additionally, 63 percent of major metros are issuing fewer permits than they were during the pandemic.