Nationally, the housing market is showing strong signs of recovery.  With new housing news out as of Monday, November 19th, here are the highlights:

  • Builder confidence is at a 6 year high.
  • Sales of existing homes are at a 5 year high.
  • Supply is the lowest it has been in 10 years, or about 5.4 months of inventory.
  • Sales expectations measuring expected future demand is the highest since February, 2007.
  • Home prices increased 5% compared with September of 2011.
The reason these numbers are so important is that since 2008, housing has been a drag on the economy.  Because household creation has been about half of the historical rate of 1.2 million households per year, housing hasn’t produced the number of jobs it traditionally does.  Housing creates jobs when new homes are built, when services are utilized in the sale of a home, and when home owners purchase furnishings for their home.  Most importantly, when homeowners see the value of their home rising, they feel more confident about the future.
For more discussion on these statistics and how housing impacts the economy, you can read more from these sources: