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Lone Star State Adds 149,000

                   Texas Leads States in Housing Gains,
                          Census Bureau Reports
                                
  Texas, with 149,000 new housing units, led all states and accounted for
about 10 percent of the increase in the nation's housing inventory between
July 2001 and July 2002, the Commerce Department's Census Bureau reported
today.

  According to the Census Bureau's tabulations, the United States had an
estimated 119.3 million housing units as of July 1, 2002. That represented
a 1.3 percent increase over July 2001.

  Texas' housing inventory climbed to 8.5 million in the one-year period.
Florida was second, adding 147,377 housing units. Rounding out the top
five were California (up 130,779), Georgia (87,909) and North Carolina
(76,480). (See Table 1.)

  The largest percentage increases in housing units occurred in Nevada
(4.0 percent), Colorado (2.9 percent), Arizona (2.7 percent), Georgia (2.6
percent) and Utah (2.3 percent). (See Table 2.)

  Other changes between 2001 and 2002:

    - The estimates showed housing growth was strong in counties on the 
      periphery of many large cities in the South and West. Douglas 
      County, Colo., near Denver, was the fastest growing, with an 8.3
      percent increase, followed by Rockwall, Texas (7.9 percent), 
      Lincoln, S.D. (7.8 percent), and Paulding and Henry in Georgia 
      (7.7 percent and 7.5 percent, respectively).

    - Broomfield County, Colo., the nation's newest county, had the sixth 
      fastest growing supply of homes, 7.0 percent. The county was created 
      in 2001 from parts of Adams, Boulder, Jefferson and Weld counties.
                                 
    - Seven counties around Minneapolis, led by Isanti County at 6.1 
      percent, had large percentage gains.

    - Los Angeles County, Calif., had the largest total number of housing 
      units in 2002, 3.3 million. (See Table 3.)

    - The South had the largest percentage increase in housing units (1.6
      percent), followed by the West (1.5 percent), the Midwest (1.0 
      percent) and the Northeast (0.6 percent).

  The estimates are based on Census 2000 counts supplemented by
administrative records such as building permits.

                              -X-

Table 1: 
States with Largest Gains in Housing Units,
July1, 2001 to July 1, 2002

Table 2:
States with Biggest Percentage Increases in
Housing Units, July 1, 2001 to July 1, 2002

Table 3
Counties with Largest Number of Housing Units
July 1, 2002

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