Dive Brief:
- Fitch Ratings has a report out saying starts on single-family homes will finish the year up 17% and new-home sales will wind up 20% ahead of last year.
- Yale economist Robert Shiller, of the Case/Shiller price indexes and most recently winner of a Nobel Prize, thinks things have overheated since housing began to come back.
- Others argue that prices are beginning to rise less slowly than they have last year and this year, and that will protect the market for inflating so much it bursts. Again.
Dive Insight:
The predictions are good, but it's not economists who will be on the hook if builders chase a growing market, make a major commitment and find out the recovery did not have the legs they hoped it did. And neither will the forecasters be the ones to lose out on profits if the market is strong enough to support more growth and builders do not jump on it. All in all, it seems to make an argument for letting national forecasts take a back seat to what builders can learn about what's going on within a day's drive.
