Too many houses, too few people to fill 'em

Let's distill the housing crisis down to its barest essence: The United States built millions more homes than there were families to fill them.

Economists have dubbed this surplus the housing "overhang." And we in Florida — forgive the pun — have one of the nation's worst hangovers.

Statistical confirmation comes from the census. Among major metros, the Tampa Bay area ranked second in home vacancies in 2007 at 5.1 percent, almost triple the empty homes just two years earlier. Orlando was tops at 7.4 percent. Don't look for 2008 to bring any improvement.

Need more proof? Two years after Tampa builders started applying the brakes, we've still got about 35,000 homes, new and used, jamming the "For Sale" listings. That number has been almost impervious to improvement, thanks in part to all the foreclosures feeding the glut.

It wasn't so much that the building industry miscalculated the nation's housing needs. It was that investor-purchasers, buoyed by cheap money, intervened to distort the market. But if your population fails to spin off sufficient new households, who's going to relieve investors of their poorly timed purchases?

Ridding ourselves of this housing overhang has grown increasingly problematic.

This is the year the first big wave of baby boomers — those turning 62 — are retiring. Florida expected to lure a portion of them from their wintry hovels.

Unfortunately, these boomers' departure from the work world coincided with a recession, credit crunch and stock market meltdown. Not exactly prime time to up and relocate to the sunny strands of St. Petersburg.

Home prices probably won't rise substantially for another two or three years. It's part of our continuing penance for overindulging in 2005.

The real estate market will be ready to catch the next wave of boomer retirees in 2011, when they start turning 65.

Maybe this time around we'll build houses people actually need.