Chart: North Dakota Building Permits Set A New Record, Beating Previous High By 57%

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A housing shortage in North Dakota has pushed rents in some parts of the state so high that they’ve made national headlines. But the state is quickly catching up. Via Mark Perry, check out the chart above from the St. Louis Fed showing issued building permits for privately-owned single family homes.

You can see the seasonal cycle for building permits in the graph (not a lot of building going in North Dakota in January), but the trend is up. Exponentially up in recent months.

The latest data is from May of this year, when 818 permits were issued statewide. That’s a new record, and a 57 percent increase over the previous record in August of 2013 when the state saw 519 permits issued.

This may be a turning point for the state’s housing situation. While there’s no question that communities have been busy with housing construction, previous years aren’t going to hold a candle to what the state is going to see in this building season.

That’s a big deal. As new constructions turn into new homes, we should see a ripple effect across the housing market. More supply means lower prices. Or, at least, a plateau in prices as the state’s population continues to grow.