The city of San Marcos permitted 278 single family homes in 2014, and while that number lags behind neighboring cities, the city's planning staff said they are encouraged because that number has been increasing each year since 2010. "Our numbers continue to increase which is very promising for San Marcos," said Kristy Stark, assistant director of planning and development services. "We're seeing a higher concentration of developers coming in and developing single-family residences and single-family subdivisions, which we hadn't seen [in previous years]." In Kyle and Buda, there were 505 and 452 single-family permits issued in 2014, respectively. Buda's total does not include the Sunfield neighborhood, which is not within the city limits. Shannon Mattingly was the planning director in New Braunfels until San Marcos hired her to become its planning director in January. She estimated New Braunfels processed about 960 permits for single-family residences in 2014. "We want to be one of the highest single-family home communities along the corridor," Stark said. "We want to keep creeping up. We'd love to see 500 homes going up [each year]." Stark said the developers of Paso Robles, a neighborhood in southwest San Marcos, will begin work on connecting water and wastewater utilities to the city's system soon. When that happens, work tends to begin on platting the land, after which vertical construction can begin. Other neighborhoods such as the Retreat at Willow Creek, near Hunter Road and Stagecoach Trail, and Vista de los Santos, near Wonder World Drive and Craddock Avenue, are making progress too, she said. According to the report, growth of the city's multifamily offerings has been outpacing single-family residences. Builders completed 1,011 multifamily units in 2014. Those units accounted for 2,829 total bedrooms. In the first quarter of 2014, the city's multifamily occupancy rate was 94.4 percent, according to Austin Investor Interests, a company that tracks real estate trends. Stark said the city's location between Austin and San Antonio, as well as the presence of Texas State University drives demand for multifamily options. "We also have a market that hasn't been saturated yet, so if you have people who are going to come and rent apartments, people are going to continue developing them until that ends," Stark said. The report also indicated investment in multifamily projects may be slowing. The value of permits for multifamily developments issued in 2013 was $135 million. In 2014, multifamily permits accounted for $20 million. Conversely, single-family permit value increased from $38 million in 2013 to $50 million in 2014.