As I’ve said, Obama’s regulations are stifling growth and 2% is very poor but we’ve been at that rate for a while. It’s just not going to get better.
As for housing the key is household formation. Average housing starts of 1.5 million over the last 50 years are made up of 1.2 million new households formed per year and 300K teardowns, second homes, fires, floods, etc. Household formation during the recession dropped to 255K in 2009 and 444K in 2010 which delayed any housing recovery and why we saw 600K starts during those years. Household formation increased to 961K in 2011 and was 1.4 million so we are getting back to a “normal range”. As housing analysts say, “those people have to live somewhere” which is why inventories and vacancy rates have declined to normal ranges.
As an FYI I do FP&A and economic forecasting for my company and we participate in the housing sector.
Do you track bank-owned housing?