I puzzled over a bit of seemingly self-negating information Tuesday. Housing starts in the month of March declined by a striking 5.8%. This takes some of the wind out of our sails. Obviously, we don’t get to continue moving toward a sustainable recovery on a straight, easy-to-negotiate path, it’s a little more complicated than that.
This should not surprise us, even if it shakes us up a bit. The other possibility, of course, is that we’re not moving securely down the recovery trail at all, and the remaining gloomsters who see us – particularly the real estate market – dropping off the edge of the earth sometime soon are giving each other high-fives because of their seeming sagacity.
Pay no mind – not even to the wonderful Nouriel Roubini. We are still headed in the right direction, for the most part. After all, the seemingly self-negating portion of this indicator was that, while March starts fell by 5.8%, builders bought up 4.5% more housing permits than they did in February.
Does this mean that builders are less sanguine about today’s market but, at the same time, a bit more optimistic about the future of the market – say, three plus months in the future???
It very well may. And it would serve us well to remain aware of the fact that large construction firms, lenders and real estate brokers are readying themselves for sizable growth in real estate sales – not tomorrow, but not too long after tomorrow either. We read a lot about how things will be visibly improved in 2013, we’ll see… In the meantime we ready ourselves for the possibility.
