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JAMES THORNERA combination of factors, such as low interest rates, pushed home starts to an all-time high.
The numbers confirm what many Pasco County residents suspected after watching thousands of new rooftops rise from field and forest: Pasco is growing like it never has before.
County housing starts for single-family homes reached an all-time high of 5,883 in 2003. That shatters the old record of 4,826 housing starts from 1978 and surpasses by 1,000 the total from 2002.
Pasco's central permitting office released the figures this week. Also counted were more than 1,500 permits for other types of homes: 306 duplexes, 795 mobile homes and more than 500 apartments.
Low mortgage interest rates and strong job creation in the Tampa Bay area have been key. But Pasco's surge is due mainly to a huge availability of lots in a 20-mile sweep of territory from Trinity in the west to Zephyrhills in the east.
Served by such highways as the Suncoast Parkway, U.S. 41 and Interstate 75, Pasco's bedroom communities promise a quick commute to jobs in Tampa and St. Petersburg.
"Hillsborough and Pinellas are both running out of developable land, Hillsborough especially in the northwest part of the county, so that's just pushed everything up into Pasco," said Marvin Rose, who publishes an industry newsletter called Rose Residential Reports.
Housing start totals for individual neighborhoods were available only through November. Those incomplete numbers show Meadow Pointe in Wesley Chapel leading the county with 273 permits.
Second place, with 243 permits, fell to Lexington Oaks, Pulte Homes' golf course community in Wesley Chapel. Seven Oaks in Wesley Chapel was third with 219 permits, followed by Plantation Palms in Land O'Lakes with 213.
Times have been so flush for the building industry that some neighborhoods, including Oakstead and Ivy Lake Estates near the Suncoast Parkway, have sold most of their lots ahead of schedule.
Home prices haven't slackened either. Through November, the average price of a new single family home in Pasco was $184,650. Places such as Seven Oaks, with an average sales price of $269,563 pushed up the average.
The past four years have seen a steady climb in Pasco permit totals: 2,931 in 2000, 3,859 in 2001, 4,786 in 2002 and 5,883 last year.
"It's been an unbelieveable market for 10 years," said Robert "Hi" Sierra, developer of Pasco Sunset Lakes development off U.S. 41 in Land O'Lakes. "It blew my mind it's been this good for so long."