Columbus Permitted Fewer New Homes in the Third Quarter of 2026

Columbus housing permits added 1,599 new residential units from July through September, down from 1,799 in the same three months of 2025 and below the 2,037 units permitted in the second quarter, according to city building records. Most of the quarter's units came from a handful of large apartment projects permitted in July.

How the count works

A building permit for a new structure is the city's sign-off before construction can begin, and each residential record lists the site address, the number of dwelling units, and the date the permit was issued. CREN counted every new-structure residential permit in the city's public Building Permits dataset by querying the ArcGIS feature service behind it, a public-domain feed released under a Creative Commons Zero waiver, and pulled the third-quarter figures on the morning of September 30, 2026.

A quarter that trailed last year

The 1,599 units Columbus permitted in the third quarter were about 11 percent fewer than the 1,799 units permitted in the same quarter of 2025. They also fell short of the 2,037 units permitted in the second quarter of 2026, though they ran ahead of the 995 units permitted in the first quarter.

Across the first nine months of 2026, Columbus has permitted 4,631 new residential units, well below the 7,033 units it had permitted through the same point in 2025.

Front-loaded in July

The quarter's total leaned heavily on its first month. Columbus permitted 1,011 residential units in July, then 362 in August and 226 in September, with the July figure alone making up about 63 percent of the quarter.

Multifamily buildings drove the swing. Of the quarter's 1,599 units, 1,361 came in 99 multifamily new-structure permits and 238 in 230 one-to-three-family permits, so a small number of large filings can move the total far more than the steady trickle of houses and duplexes.

Where the new homes clustered

Four ZIP codes accounted for about 80 percent of the quarter's new residential units. The 43219 ZIP on the northeast side led with 387 units, followed by the South Side's 43207 with 374, the near-northwest 43212 with 263, and 43081 near Westerville with 252, and the rest were spread across 18 other ZIP codes.

A few developments account for those clusters. A single multifamily permit for 263 units at 1515 Gerrard Ave drove the 43212 total in July, a group of 24-unit apartment permits along Sovereign Crest Drive and nearby streets made up most of 43219, and separate multifamily groupings on the South Side and near Presley Hope Place filled out 43207 and 43081.

What the permit count leaves out

A permit is not a finished home, and because one project can carry a separate structural permit for each building, permit counts run ahead of both the number of projects and the number of finished homes. Declared construction values in the feed are often left blank and are not sale prices, so CREN did not rank projects by cost. The city updates the feed daily, and late entries can lift the September and third-quarter totals after this count was taken.

What to watch next

CREN will refresh the count at the close of the fourth quarter and watch whether multifamily filings return to the faster pace seen earlier this year or the recent slower months carry into the winter.