[quote=briansd1]As the economy recovers, more houses will be built and that will mean more choices for buyers.

Actually, it seems like the general economy has decoupled from housing in the last year. We had economic growth without housing.

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I think you missed an important point that Bill made here. Residential construction spending will make a positive contribution to GDP growth, but that’s growth from a more than 50 year low. Residential investment will remain extraordinarily low for at least the next 2 years as the inventory overhang is absorbed. Foreclosures in 2011 will remain at the very high 2010 level, and probably won’t subside until mid 2012. Buyers already have a huge number of choices. (Keep in mind, i’m talking nationally, there will be wide geographic variations.)

You’re right on the second point, but the timing is off. Historically, increased residential investment has lead us out of recessions. That would have been mid-2009. We didn’t (and still don’t) have that huge boost to employment that residential contruction provides. And we won’t for the forseeable future. Maybe 3 to 5 years, and even then will not return to the units/year that we saw the middle of the last decade. Which is why some economists are talking about the current unemployment problem as structural rather than cyclical. Of the more than 5 million jobs in new home contruction of a few years ago, probably 1/2 or more will not return in the next decade.