Posted on 01/20/2006 2:07:32 PM PST by george76
Last year was a record for the nation's home building industry .
The Commerce Department reported Thursday that construction of single-family homes and apartments totaled 2.065 million units last year.
The increase of 5.6 percent over 2004 pushed overall residential construction to the second highest level on record, exceeded only by 2.357 million units built in 1972.
Meanwhile, single-family home construction hit an all-time high for the third straight year, rising to 1.714 million units, up 6.4 percent from the previous record of 1.611 million homes built in 2004.
The record-setting performance came despite the fact that housing activity dropped by 8.9 percent in December...
Part of that falloff was attributed to the weather. Unusually mild weather in November had boosted construction while wet and cold weather in many parts of the country depressed December activity.
Michael Carliner, senior economist at the National Association of Home Builders, predicted that construction activity would drop by around 6.5 percent in 2006 with sales down by a similar amount.
He predicted that home prices, which have doubled over the past decade, will see a slowing as well.
Instead of climbing at annual rates of 10 percent or more, Carliner predicted that home prices would probably rise by around 5 percent in 2006.
Easing concerns about inflation have sent mortgage rates lower in recent weeks. Freddie Mac reported on Thursday that rates on 30-year mortgages dropped for a sixth consecutive week, falling to 6.10 percent, the lowest level in three months.
Meanwhile, the Labor Department reported Thursday that the number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits dropped to 271,000 last week, the lowest level since April 2000.
The unexpectedly sharp decline of 36,000 claims from the previous week provided further evidence that the labor market continues to show strength.
(Excerpt) Read more at chieftain.com ...
I don't believe it. La-La-La-La-La-La-La-La!!!!
Yeah, but, WORST UNEMPLOYMENT SINCE HOOVER!!
Let me be the first to say it. It's all Bush's fault!
Good--I'm invested in home construction!
Some liberals will say...
more jobs are bad, people getting new homes is bad...
US population 2004 - 295 Million.
US population 1972 - 209 Million.
1/3 Fewer People then, more housing units. We are no where near a relative all-time high.
"We are no where near a relative all-time high."
I wonder where there might be data on housing relative to population? New ones get built, old ones get torn down, population increases overall, but declines in many of the older industrial cities with a large stock of housing, virtually all of which are "blue state."
This just cannot be, the housing bubble popped five years ago!
I bought a home this year. Didn't think I'd ever be able to have one. Nice low price, nice low interest rate. Only my property appraisal is out of control.
"This just cannot be, the housing bubble popped five years ago!"
--- Yeah, but just think how high the new starts would have been if that bubble hadn't burst
\sarc
I know the influence of a little berg like Columbia, MO is insignificant
compared to the hot markets of Los Angeles, etc.
But I think I just saw a "distant early warning" of softening in our
local real estate market...a local TV advertisement by a contractor
for doing home improvements.
Haven't ever seen one before, so it's likely its a sign our local contractors
are starting to feel a pinch of reduced workload.
We are also in an illegal alien boom. I'm surprised it was not mentioned earlier. There is a relationship between the two.
So much for Greenspan's campaign to kill the housing market.
I want this illegal alien problem under control. But if we didn't have them I think we would be in a -5% unemployment rate labor market. That would be great for wages, but kind of a mess.
I don't want to get rid of all mexicans. I want things frozen in place. I want that border enforced, and the ones that commit additional crimes locked up. I want deportees that come back a second time to be locked up in special prisons.
But the market is based on a false premise of using illegal work to spur the growth of housing.
I have never really thought about it like that... ;)
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