Information recently made available by the Commerce Department indicates that rental properties are being built is significantly greater numbers than single-family dwellings in the 10 busiest markets for home construction in the U.S. As a result of more than half of new housing being in the form of apartments, condominiums and similar structures, the U.S. was still able to claim gains in housing formation in spite of historic lows in the rate of homeownership.

The benefit to the housing market is that rentals have made way for an improvement in home building, but there are some drawbacks. People aren’t able to build equity in a rental, and the construction of rental properties does not give the economy as large a boost as when a single-family home is built. According to the National Association of Home Builders, it is believed that three full-time jobs are created with each single-family home that is built, but only one full-time job is created when a rental property is built.

New York City led the way with a 149.4 percent increase in the number of building permits for rental properties in the first half of this year compared to the first half of last year. However, this may be in part attributed to the worry that a property-tax abatement for new residential construction was going to expire, and builders may have wanted to get in ahead of a potential June 15 deadline. Los Angeles and Miami saw the second and third highest increases in rental permits, which were 41.4 percent and 37.5 percent, respectively.