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JUNE 16, 2009
New home report: The good, the bad and the ugly
The Associated Press waxes upbeat on the latest May new home construction numbers:
Construction of new homes jumped in May by the largest amount in three months, an encouraging sign that the nation's deep housing recession was beginning to bottom out.
The Commerce Department said Tuesday that construction of new homes and apartments jumped 17.2 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 532,000 units. That was better than the 500,000-unit pace that economists had expected and came after construction fell in April to a record low of 454,000 units.
The Commerce Department said Tuesday that construction of new homes and apartments jumped 17.2 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 532,000 units. That was better than the 500,000-unit pace that economists had expected and came after construction fell in April to a record low of 454,000 units.
A few paragraphs later in the story and we descend to the downbeat part:
Many economists believe that home prices will
keep falling until next spring and that sales won't start to show
significant gains until the summer of 2010.
The 17.2 percent rise in housing construction for May still left activity 45.2 percent below where it was a year ago.
Local builders are still trying to work off their glut of inventory and compete against barely-lived-in foreclosure homes. The good news is that the inventory is starting to move if it's priced low.
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