Lawrence’s 12-year streak of building at least 300 new single-family homes a year is on the line.

According to a recent report from city officials, it appears 2002 has a chance to be the slowest year for home construction since 1990.

Through November, builders had started 272 single-family homes in Lawrence. That’s about 4 percent behind last year, when contractors had started 283 homes.

The total number of permits taken out thus far in December is not known, but officials in the city’s building permit office will tally total numbers for 2002 in early January.

Builders still have a chance to top last year’s mark of 308 homes built in the city, but it will take a late-December surge to do it. Contractors are on pace to start 297 single-family homes in 2002. The last time Lawrence failed to have at least 300 homes in a year was in 1990, when 261 were started.

Larry Midyett, broker with Century 21 Miller & Midyett Realtors, said people might be surprised to learn that Lawrence’s building totals were down in a year when mortgage rates were at all-time lows. But he said the slowdown showed how reliant the Lawrence housing market had become on homes in the upper price range, generally considered to be $300,000 or more.

Those homes simply haven’t been selling as they had in previous years, Midyett said.

“It’s the stock market,” Midyett said. “Most of those upper-end buyers are usually pretty big players in the stock market. They look at their balance sheets and just decide to stay where they are.”

Midyett said the Lawrence housing market hadn’t been able to adjust to the changing times because the price of land was so high that it was difficult to build lower-priced homes.

“You can’t build a $150,000 home on a $50,000 lot,” Midyett said.

In November, builders took out permits for just 15 single-family homes, down from 43 in October but up from 14 in November 2001.

Overall, city officials issued building permits for $10.5 million worth of projects in November. That’s up from $9.6 million in October and $8.1 million in November 2001.

For the year, builders have started $126.3 million in projects. That’s a drop of about 8.5 percent from last year’s $138 million.

In November, the largest project was a $2.2 million warehouse expansion at Prosoco Inc. in the East Hills Business Park. The manufacturer of stone and masonry cleaning products is adding approximately 50,000 square feet of space and eight to 10 new jobs to keep up with increasing demand for its products.