US Counties With the Lowest New Homes Permitted
3,024 US counties ranked by new homes permitted, from lowest to highest. First are Bacon County, GA (0.00), Baker County, GA (0.00) and Clinch County, GA (0.00). The middle one of the 3,024 has 1.95.
What this measures
New homes approved by a building permit during the year, counted in housing units. A permit is a plan to build, and a few are never built. In the few places that need no permit, homes are not counted at all. Source: Census Building Permits Survey.
This is a count, so it is ranked per 1,000 residents. Ranked by the raw total, it would just list the biggest counties.
For most measures, a national ranking mostly sorts places by income and by how urban they are. Each county’s own page compares it with the 50 counties most like it instead, which is often the fairer view.
The 100 lowest counties
Every state, lowest first
Each state’s own published figure, not an average of its counties.
| Rank | State | Per 1,000 residents |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rhode Island | 1.07 |
| 2 | Alaska | 1.28 |
| 3 | Illinois | 1.33 |
| 4 | Connecticut | 1.74 |
| 5 | Massachusetts | 1.89 |
| 6 | Pennsylvania | 1.95 |
| 7 | Michigan | 2.05 |
| 8 | West Virginia | 2.25 |
| 9 | Ohio | 2.32 |
| 10 | New York | 2.46 |
| 11 | Mississippi | 2.61 |
| 12 | Hawaii | 2.62 |
| 13 | Missouri | 2.72 |
| 14 | California | 2.85 |
| 15 | Wyoming | 2.90 |
| 16 | Maryland | 2.99 |
| 17 | Louisiana | 3.08 |
| 18 | Kansas | 3.24 |
| 19 | New Hampshire | 3.28 |
| 20 | Oklahoma | 3.36 |
| 21 | North Dakota | 3.36 |
| 22 | Kentucky | 3.42 |
| 23 | Iowa | 3.51 |
| 24 | New Jersey | 3.54 |
| 25 | Wisconsin | 3.65 |
| 26 | Vermont | 3.81 |
| 27 | Montana | 3.90 |
| 28 | Indiana | 3.97 |
| 29 | Alabama | 4.02 |
| 30 | New Mexico | 4.02 |
| 31 | Virginia | 4.17 |
| 32 | Oregon | 4.18 |
| 33 | Arkansas | 4.23 |
| 34 | Maine | 4.49 |
| 35 | Minnesota | 4.49 |
| 36 | District of Columbia | 4.49 |
| 37 | Nebraska | 4.52 |
| 38 | Washington | 4.79 |
| 39 | Delaware | 5.73 |
| 40 | Nevada | 5.87 |
| 41 | Georgia | 5.88 |
| 42 | Colorado | 6.78 |
| 43 | Tennessee | 6.79 |
| 44 | Utah | 7.61 |
| 45 | Texas | 7.84 |
| 46 | South Dakota | 7.86 |
| 47 | Arizona | 8.04 |
| 48 | South Carolina | 8.15 |
| 49 | Florida | 8.84 |
| 50 | North Carolina | 9.34 |
| 51 | Idaho | 9.46 |
More on new homes permitted
- US Counties With the Highest New Homes Permitted
- New homes permitted by US county: map by year and what it goes with
A ranking describes places, not the people in them, and a high or low place does not by itself say why. All US rankings.