Mortgage & Loan: More Bad Housing News

Although the overall economy is demonstrating resiliency and flexibility, the housing market continues to sag like Zsa Zsa Gabor's breasts:

The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that construction of new homes and apartments rose by 2.5 percent in April compared to March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.528 million units.

Even with the improvement, housing construction is 25.9 percent lower than a year ago. And in a worrisome sign for the future, builders cut their requests for new construction permits by 8.9 percent in April. That was the sharpest drop since a 24 percent fall in February 1990, another period when housing was going through a significant downturn.

And NAHB economist David Seiders' forecast doesn't quite pack the rosy punch of his old buddy David Lereah:

David Seiders, chief economist for the home builders, said the survey found that the rising defaults in the subprime mortgage market were adding to concerns about the ability to reduce a huge inventory of unsold new homes and causing builders to cut back on their plans.

"We're now projecting that home sales and housing production will not begin improving until late this year and we're expecting the early stages of the subsequent recovery to be quite sluggish," Seiders said.

What, no sunny forecasts about how the market has nowhere to go but up? Why isn't Lereah spinning his gospel on this?

Oh, wait...

Posted at May 16, 2007 02:53 PM

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Although the overall economy is demonstrating resiliency and flexibility, the housing market continues to sag like Zsa Zsa Gabor's breasts: The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that construction of new homes and apartments rose by 2.5 percent in April compared to March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.528 million units. Even with the improvement, housing construction is 25.9 percent lower than a year ago. And in a worrisome sign for the future, builders cut their requests for new construction permits by 8.9 percent in April. That was the sharpest drop since a 24 percent fall in February 1990, another period when housing was going through a significant downturn. And NAHB economist David Seiders' forecast doesn't quite pack the rosy punch of his old buddy David Lereah: David Seiders, chief economist for the home builders, said the survey found that the rising defaults in the subprime mortgage market were adding to concerns about the ability to reduce a huge inventory of unsold new homes and causing builders to cut back on their plans. "We're now projecting that home sales and housing production will not begin improving until late this year and we're expecting the early stages of the subsequent recovery to be quite sluggish," Seiders said. What, no sunny forecasts about how the market has nowhere to go but up? Why isn't Lereah spinning his gospel on this? Oh, wait...