No, his company can't build another home. No, his employees can't go lay cement. And he will keep saying "no," even though he so wants to say "yes."

"If we can find the help we would build more," said Anderson, who is president of Washington County-based AJ Construction. "But if we take any more [work], I'm just afraid we will start doing a bad job."

Anderson's experience is fairly typical for home builders in Utah. A new U.S. census report released today shows Utah has the third-fastest growth rate in the home market, behind neighboring states Nevada and Arizona. From 2003 to 2004, Utah's home growth equaled 2.6 percent, or almost 22,000 housing units, which includes apartments, condos and townhouses.

States in the West make up four of the top five and five of the top 10 growing home markets.

Top growth areas in Utah include the northern rim of Utah County and the Bear Lake area of Rich County. But the area seeing the largest share of those new homes is Washington County, ranked 16th in the country in residential home construction.

Anderson, who has dealt mostly in high-end homes since AJ Construction opened in 1994, has never seen a crush of work like this.

"I haven't even been half this busy," he said. His crew is now working on 13 homes ranging in cost from $600,000 to $1.8 million. On Wednesday, he turned down three offers to build homes and six offers to lay cement.

"We get a call a day," he said, "and we just can't take any more."

Part of the problem is employees. A report released earlier this week by the state Department of Workforce Services, shows that the construction industry has seen more job growth than any other sector of the economy, with a growth rate of 9.1 in the past year.

Anderson has done his part. He has increased his staff from 10 to 40 and is now trying to recruit more workers from out of state. Another concern is hiring subcontractors to frame a home or install drywall, who are in constantly in demand. The delay in subcontractor work usually adds two months to the average construction time, Anderson said.

The booming home market has made "it impossible to find land there for any reasonable price," according to Carol Moody, sales manager for Springville-based Salisbury Homes.

Moody said Salisbury Homes and other large home builders have begun turning away some potential investors because they are concerned the housing markets in St. George, Salt Lake and Provo could become artificially inflated.

"It is a very exciting market to be around right now," she said.

mcanham@sltrib.com