Looking forward from mid-2009, BUILDER magazine offers a roundup of economic forecasts that predict significant improvements in housing starts beginning in 2010. According to economists at the National Association of Home Builders, Freddie Mac, and IHS Global Insight, housing starts will begin to recover as early as the third quarter of 2009 and will increase dramatically in 2010. Read BUILDER’s mid-year forecast roundup.
However, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Economy.com, housing will not lead the economic recovery. Zandi predicts that housing starts will return to a rate of 1 million units by the end of 2010 and that growth will continue through 2011.
The economic recession will end sometime in 2009, Zandi thinks, due mostly to consumers adjusting their spending, the U.S. banking system stabilizing, and the benefits of the federal stimulus package. Read the BUILDER magazine article on Zandi’s complete economic forecast.
