Trends and Characteristics of Building Permits in California

12 pages•Published: July 23, 2025

Tarek Salama, Brady Bohn, Joseph Fagundes, Moatassem Abdallah and Gareth Figgess

Abstract

This paper is centered on the comprehensive analysis of data obtained from the Construction Industry Research Board (CIRB) of the California Homebuilding Foundation (CHF) regarding the characteristics of building permits in California. The primary objective is to establish connections between these permit characteristics and the current economic landscape. To bolster the academic rigor of this research, an academic portal is developed to provide a centralized platform for scholarly resources. The analysis includes the examination of geographical areas concerning building permits and economic indices such as population dynamics, fluctuations in interest and mortgage rates, overall inflation, home sales volume, and unemployment percentage. Educational version of Tableau software developed by Salesforce Inc. is utilized for mapping building permits for the 58 counties in California as well as for conducting time series analysis for building permits and forecasting the number of building permits across California. It was found that there is a correlation between BPs and overall inflation, mortgage rates, home sales volume and unemployment rate and there is a significant causal relationship between BPs and each of overall inflation and mortgage rates as well as a marginally significant causal relationship between BPs and each of home sales volume and unemployment rate.

Keyphrases: building permits, economic indices, mapping, time series analysis

In: Wesley Collins, Anthony J. Perrenoud and John Posillico (editors). Proceedings of Associated Schools of Construction 61st Annual International Conference, vol 6, pages 540-551.

Links:	https://easychair.org/publications/paper/c6d8
	https://doi.org/10.29007/j8jh

BibTeX entry

@inproceedings{ASC2025:Trends_Characteristics_Building_Permits,
  author    = {Tarek Salama and Brady Bohn and Joseph Fagundes and Moatassem Abdallah and Gareth Figgess},
  title     = {Trends and Characteristics of Building Permits in California},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of Associated Schools of Construction 61st Annual International Conference},
  editor    = {Wesley Collins and Anthony J. Perrenoud and John Posillico},
  series    = {EPiC Series in Built Environment},
  volume    = {6},
  publisher = {EasyChair},
  bibsource = {EasyChair, https://easychair.org},
  issn      = {2632-881X},
  url       = {/publications/paper/c6d8},
  doi       = {10.29007/j8jh},
  pages     = {540-551},
  year      = {2025}}

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