San Francisco metro area's new apartment construction on the decline

• In the first half of 2022, developers broke ground on 1,846 multi-family buildings.

The big picture: To meet its deadline, San Francisco proper would need to permit an average of 28 new housing units every day through early 2031, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

• Yes, but: The city is already behind. San Francisco has approved permits for a little under 10 units per day from Jan. 1 to July 15.

State of play: San Francisco's permitting process is notoriously slow, resulting in fewer new homebuilding permits issued since the pandemic.

• It took an average of more than 600 days to obtain a permit in 2022, according to a San Francisco Chronicle analysis of city permitting data.
• Meanwhile, San Francisco has the second-most expensive construction costs ($5,200 per square meter on average) in the world, according to a 2023 analysis from real estate consultancy Turner & Townsend.

• Earlier this month, the developer of a $1.2 billion mixed-use project in Hayes Valley suspended construction "until markets normalize and [it's] able to bring in early tenancy commitments, or a capital partner, or both," developer Arden Hearing told the San Francisco Chronicle.

What to watch: The city has recently sought solutions to reduce barriers in the city's permitting and approval processes to remove some density restrictions and more.