More homes are being built in area after home construction was slow to start 2012

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) - It's already fall, but that hasn't stopped home builders from constructing new homes in the area.  Home construction started slow, but home construction picked up since the start of the year.

"Things are looking to pick up a little bit it looks like," John Kessler, the director of Center For Economic Education at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, said.  "I'm really curious to see what the September numbers look like."

As of August, there have been 397 building permits for single-family residences in Allen County.

"Our market is not as quite as robust as it has been in the past, but we're hopeful things are on the right track and getting turned around for us," Floyd Lancia, an owner at Lancia Homes , said.

The increase isn't just taking place in Indiana.  It's happening across the entire Midwest.

"We are up 74.5 percent from August of last year for single-family residences," Kessler said.  "We're actually the fastest growing, from last year.  We've improved more than any other region in the country."

The second largest growth has taken place in the northeast.  It has seen a 31 percent increase over the same time span.

The real estate market as a whole has improved.  According to Kessler's numbers, housing prices around Fort Wayne have increased by about three percent, compared to last year.

Lancia said his office has seen more potential customers, and more people at model homes.  That many times has turned into a new home sale.

"The comfort level is better now than it has been," Lancia said when asked why more homes are being built.  "A lot of it was insecurity because of maybe not know whether or not they would have a job or continue to have a job."

According to Kessler, the nationwide unemployment rate has decreased from 8.1 to 7.8 percent.

"The reason why it went down was because there were 600,000 new jobs created," he said.  "Those new jobs were part-time jobs.  People who would rather be working full-time, took a part-time job.  Since they took a part-time job, rather than no job, unemployment went down, but still not the best environment."

Another reason buyers are confident is due to record-low interest rates.

"We anticipate having low levels of interest rate for an extended period of time," Kessler said.  "They're waiting for the nationwide employment to increase."

Kessler said experts expect  rates to remain low for at least a year or two.  That's assuming inflation doesn't go up significantly higher than projected.