Housing inventory is at a critical low in the Birmingham metro area as rising material costs and inflation makes contractors hesitant to begin new projects according to Bennie Waller, the William Cary Hulsey faculty fellow in the Culverhouse College of Business at The University of Alabama.

Only one housing permit is issued for every seven jobs created in the metro according to a study Waller cited from the National Association of Realtors.

This is a far cry from the national norm of one permit issued for every two new jobs, the study says.

Eleven different cities in the metro area would run out of houses in less than a month if no new homes were made available for sale according to a Stacker study from last summer that Waller provided updated data for.

Those cities include (ranked from highest to lowest by months of inventory available with no new homes):