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- Central Ohio home construction inches slightly up
- Construction falls short of meeting region’s needs
- Apartment construction plummets last year
Central Ohio home construction inched up slightly last year but remains well below where experts say it should be to combat the region’s housing shortage.
Permits were issued for 10,474 residences of all types throughout the Columbus region, slightly above the 10,196 reported in 2023, according to the Building Industry Association of Central Ohio, relying on figures from the housing research company Zonda.
The number is well below the 14,000 to 19,000 apartments and homes thought to be needed to meet the region’s needs, according to a 2022 report.
“This level of home construction is simply not enough to support our region’s population growth and economic expansion,” said BIA Executive Director Jon Melchi in a news release. “The shortage is driving up home prices and rents, increasing housing instability, and making it harder for employers to attract and retain workers.”
While the number of single-family homes under construction rose last year, multi-family construction, which includes apartments and condominiums, fell sharply as developers continued to battle high borrowing, land and construction costs. Permits were pulled for 4,750 new apartments and condos in 2024, nearly 2,000 fewer than in 2023.
According to the BIA, Columbus’s housing starts remained well below some similarly sized cities such as Nashville (22,947 homes), Raleigh (19,902) and Indianapolis (12,061).
New homes in Columbus are also far more expensive than in those regions, with a median price of $497,450 last year, compared with $419,945 in Nashville, $430,250 in Raleigh, and $375,000 in Indianapolis.
The rise in new home prices reflected a climb in the price of existing central Ohio homes last year: The median price of a Columbus-area home was a record $319,900, up 6% from the previous year and $110,000 more than five years earlier.
The BIA attributed the slow pace of homebuilding to “restrictive zoning policies and inadequate infrastructure,” and used the report to renew calls for municipalities to update zoning policies and expand roads and sewer and water lines.
“The demand is there, but outdated policies and infrastructure bottlenecks are holding back production,” said Melchi. “If we don’t address these challenges, we risk losing economic opportunities to more housing-friendly markets.”
While the city of Columbus has taken steps to increase home construction, including revamping its zoning code, other municipalities have been slow to join.
@JimWeiker
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