Still Guessing…Leaning Toward The Positive

The U.S. housing market will begin to mount a turnaround this year, building toward a solid recovery in 2013, according to a forecast by the chief economist of a homebuilding industry trade group. The outlook by National Association of Home Builders Chief Economist David Crowe all call for U.S. sales of new homes and single-family home construction to improve this year compared with 2011, when they hit record lows. The forecast still leaves new home sales and construction well below levels of a healthy housing market, however. That reflects the severity of the industry's downturn, and suggests the housing market could be years away from full health. "I'm looking at 2012 as sort of a ramping event to get a much more solid recovery in 2013," Crowe said in a telephone interview. The economist, who gave his forecast at the trade association's annual conference in Orlando, Fla., sees sales of new, single-family homes climbing 19% this year to 360,000. Next year, he expects those sales to rise a whopping 40% to 505,000. Crowe's outlook also hinges on unemployment staying below 8.5% and the economy adding more jobs. And he's assuming that tight lending requirements will ease this year, enabling more homebuyers to qualify for financing. Source: Investors Business Daily