
The recovery in house prices has produced unusual weakness in home ownership rates, home sales, first-time homebuyer demand, and new home construction. Wouldn't a durable housing recovery based on improving fundamentals be hard to deny? A real recovery would be characterized by resurging new home construction and steady gains in sales and prices commensurate with strong job growth and rising incomes. To say the recent recovery is unusual doesn't fully capture the extreme oddities marking efforts to reflate the old housing bubble. The most unusual and bearish features of the housing recovery include the following: 20-year lows in home ownership 6-year lows in home sales 30-year lows in first-time homebuyer participation 20-year lows in purchase mortgage originations New home construction less than 50%…[READ MORE]