Everyone wants to live here — most new home starts

St Johns County home builders should be busy — we continue to outpace the rest of the region in home building — 55 percent of all new home permits in March were pulled here according to information received by Historic City News from the Northeast Florida Builders Association in Jacksonville.

Of the 324 home building permits pulled in March, 178 were in St. Johns County. Builders pulled 87 permits in Duval County, 44 in Clay and 15 in Nassau.

Permits throughout the region were up over March 2011, when builders only pulled 275 permits. Of those, 99 permits, or 36 percent, were in St. Johns County; 124, or 45 percent, were in Duval.

Building permits pulled in the first quarter were up over the first quarter of 2011. Builders pulled 838 permits in the first quarter, up 30 percent from 644 in the first quarter of 2011.