This chart gives me mixed messages....
My first impression was: We suffered a major dislocation in the market due to the push by the idiot government to get EVERYONE in a home, whether they could afford it or not. We got WAY above the norm, corrected, and are now still well below the long term average. Which suggests that we will continue correcting toward the norm.
However, one can’t look at data like this without consider the affect of the demographic bubble that is the boomers. They are a LOT of people, moving to retirement, and downsizing to smaller homes and/or apartments or multi-family houses.
Plus, there seems to me to be an increase toward re-urbanization... with more and more people moving to apartments nearer city centers. So, maybe that continues to depress the single-family home numbers for awhile??
But...I think the first point is most likely the correct reading. Interesting that the numbers truly moved off norm in 2001, just a W was coming into office.
--and that was a good thing. Houses being built and money loaned isn't something that should stay at a 'norm' because folks have kids and America grows. In the mid '00s the number of homes built topped the previous peak of three decades earlier by 20%, and during that time the U.S. population had increased by 50%. imho it's not economic growth ten years ago being problem, it's the econ collapse of '09 that needs to be fixed.