Oh boy, here we go again. Prices are surging as the number of homes on the market dwindles.

For anyone who bought a home or tried to back in the bubble years, it’s looking like déjà vu all over again, as Yogi Berra once said.

Yet our local home builders are still acting like it’s the winter of 2009, when the global economy teetered on the edge of the abyss and no sane person was looking to take out a $500,000 mortgage.

Builders actually took out fewer permits for single-family homes last year than in 2010. In fact, we are about where we were back in 2009 when it comes to home building in both Greater Boston and across Massachusetts.

As the rest of the real estate market has come roaring back, home building is stuck in low gear – or, more accurately, no gear at all.

And unless that changes, and changes fast, we could very well be looking at runway home prices once again.

Numbers That Defy Logic

OK, these stats are puzzling, to say the least.

Building permits for new, single-family homes actually fell from 5,838 in 2010 to 5,421 in 2012, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

New home construction in Massachusetts is nowhere near back to normal – in fact, it’s not even on the path back to normal.

It’s a pathetic, paltry number for one of the wealthiest, most densely populated states in the country.

By comparison, builders took out permits for 14,882 new homes in 2004, as prices started to escalate.

In a normal, reasonably functioning housing market, we would have seen a pickup in building permits for single-family homes at least a year ago, if not even earlier.

After all, home sales have been rising steadily for well more than a year, with prices, which initially lagged, now building up a head of steam.

Builders are hammering away again in markets across the country, including parts of the country where they flooded the market with new homes.

Nationally, the number of building permits for new homes jumped 34 percent in February over the same month the year before.

By contrast, Massachusetts, if anything, saw underbuilding during the bubble/boom years when prices went haywire.

However, market conditions would seem to be perfect right now for a surge in new home construction here in Massachusetts as well.

The number of homes on the market fell a record 28 percent across the state in February, according to the Massachusetts Association of Realtors.

Meanwhile, in a foretaste of what we may be seeing more of as the year unfolds and buyers outnumber available homes, prices jumped by more than 12 percent in February over the same period last year, according to The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman.

So there is every incentive, at least on the surface, for home builders to start building single-families.

Sure, some things are getting built. Lots of new apartment towers and suburban rental communities are popping up, with a few condo projects mixed in.

And in upscale suburbs like Wellesley and Needham, Concord and Lexington, contractors are busy tearing down humble 1950s Capes and ranches and putting up McMansions in their places.

That might relieve some of the pressure at the top of the market, but it makes it that much harder for middle class buyers looking for a break. And it doesn’t increase the number of homes in the market, it just replaces older and smaller ones with bigger, newer and more expensive models.

But so far, our local builders, or what remains of the industry after the last downturn, are hanging back. So what gives?

Troubling, Long-Term Trend

Well, we’ve succeeded in handcuffing our local building industry, all but driving it to the ground.

Certainly the Great Recession didn’t do anybody any favors, putting the squeeze or driving out of business more than a few small builders.

But even more damaging has been the NIMBY culture that dominates our small towns and suburbs, especially inside the relatively affluent 495 beltway.

Local officials don’t want families with children because they drive up school costs. The modest house with three bedrooms, which would be a real find for a middle class family, is instead seen as some sort of tax parasite, to be zoned out.

So we end up with big, 40B apartment complexes, featuring lots of pricey, market rate units with a few subsidized apartments, and McMansions, where the high taxes ensure a payback, even if there is a child or two in the deal.

Now as prices rise, more sellers will come forward and put their house on the market.

But that alone will not be enough to keep prices in check.

While three times the number of building permits was taken out by builders during the bubble years, it was still far below the tens of thousands of building permits pulled during the peak years of the 1980s housing boom. Or, for that matter, the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, the last time we had a healthy, thriving market for middle income buyers.

In order to keep home prices in check, we need more new construction.

And right now, that’s just not happening.

Email: sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com