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ST. GEORGE — Dixie's home builders are feeling optimistic, because for the first time in several years, requests for new home permits there were up during the first quarter.
St. George hasn't heard a whole lot of hammers and tools working recently, but they're starting to.
"There is something boiling up and we are beginning to feel like Dixie again," said Carol Sapp is with the Southern Utah Home Builders Association
"I don't want to be too excited about it, but I am. It's hard to contain it actually, you know?"
From the beginning of the year to the end of last week, there were 261 single family home permits in the St. George area. Last year during the same time there were only 162. That's nearly a hundred more this year. Salibsury Homes is seeing the biggest increase.
"Last year, we're about triple what we were last year at this same time," said Dustin Van Gilder with Salisbury Homes.
Van Gilder said Salisbury is currently building in several subdivisions in the St. George market, something they haven't done a lot of since right before the economy crashed.
"We're selling homes very quickly," he said. "It's quite a sight to see 20-30 homes going up at a time."
St. George was also recently listed in the "improving markets index," which is a list of the top 100 markets in the country, places where permits, house prices and employment have to improve for six straight months.
"This is the first time St. George has ever hit this list, and so we said, "wow!" We're not just optimistically looking at the numbers. Somebody else has verified that we have a reason to feel good," Sapp said.
Of course, the trick is seeing if these numbers will continue. They are still nowhere near what they were five to six years ago, but home builders seem to agree that a nice, slow, steady increase up is the way to go.
"Pretty much across the board. All the subcontractors, the builders, we all feel like everything is pointing to a positive direction," said Tracy Ence with Ence Homes.
As the demand for housing starts to increase, builders try and meet that demand with new construction, which, for local economies, is always a good sign.
