Residential permits issued went up by 11 percent and the estimated value of this new building activity jumped upwards by 31.9 percent. Similarly the number of units slated to be built increased by 32.7 percent. Residential alteration activity for 3rd Quarter was also good. The number of alteration permits issued climbed by nearly 15 percent, and their estimated value was about 12 percent higher than last year's mark. Nonresidential construction is very volatile from year to year, hence no percentage changes are given in Table 13 .
Good news comes from the sample of area financial institutions.
More good news comes from the lending side. All of these numbers suggest that the local economy expanded over the past twelve months.