Builders are slowing. Look at housing starts nationwide, down drastically. Homebuilders are not building as many homes, especially in areas which aren’t profitable. At least…..smart builders are slowing. Here in the Charleston, SC area, one town had 0 housing starts in February (same town had over 1,000 starts in 2006). Actually, chart is here…..
New Summerville residential building permits:

2007: 1,100.
2008: 229
2009: 3 (January-February).

One more point I’d like to make….I know there are many neighborhoods chock-full of foreclosures. Odds are that many of the occupied homes are full of…..subprimes? Alt-a’s? What does it feel like driving through such neighborhoods? Is it somewhere you’d like to move with a family? Doubtful. I imagine (just my hunch) that many people looking for a home in the next few years will avoid such neighborhoods and buy either a new home in a neighborhood where credit scores at purchase were >680 or a 20+ year old neighborhood…

Twist, as always, though-provoking.

HBs aren’t wondering why they can’t sell more- they know. If only the government would subsidize the new homes so that they are cheaper than the competition, at least what sells will be a new home.

Of course, that leaves us with an ever increasing supply of existing homes that are diminishing in value, but hey, you can’t have everything.

Surely you aren’t trying to tell me that exponential growth in finite world is physically and mathematically impossible?

Well darn, there goes the idea for my new multi-level marketing program!

And I’m with Egor, I’m outraged.

it’s an evergrowing economy so there will always be more buyers……in the same way that it’s an evergrowing workforce so social security will always have healthy growth…..oh wait…ooops.

And the home builders continue to wonder what happened and why they can’t build more homes. Life is a mystery.

I couldn’t agree more.

L told me that during the S&L crisis, HBs didn’t stop building until the lenders took away their nails. This time around I worry that Big Brother will do what the lenders won’t and keep HBs supplied with plenty on nails- and the market supplied with too many houses.

Igor’s “outraged” this morning. I think we need to start buying him the decaffinated spam for breakfast- he’s getting a little testy.

Short of letting a squadron of B52s loose on the IE, what better way to reduce inventory than for the market to impose a holiday on the HBs?