Housing and the economy: Rising from the ruins | The Economist

THERE are two things everyone knows about American economic recoveries. The first is that the housing sector traditionally leads the economy out of recession. The second is that there is no chance of the housing sector leading the present economy anywhere, except deeper into the mire. In the two years after the recession of the early 1980s housing investment rose 56%; it is down 6.3% in the present recovery. America is saddled with a debilitating overhang of excess housing, the thinking goes, and as a result is doomed to years of slow growth and underemployment.

The economic landscape is unquestionably littered with the wreckage of the crash. Home prices languish near post-bubble lows, over 30% below peak. The plunge in prices has left nearly a quarter of all mortgage borrowers owing more than the value of their homes; nearly 10m are seriously delinquent on their loans or in foreclosure. The hardest-hit markets are ghost neighbourhoods, filled with dilapidated properties. Housing markets are far from healthy. Yet current pessimism seems overdone. A turnaround in sales, prices and construction may be closer than many imagine.

The potential for a strong housing recovery lies in the depths of the bust. America’s housing boom was remarkable for its impact on prices and for the flow of new households into the market, which pushed the home-ownership rate above 69%, the highest on record. Construction also boomed, but less wildly. Housing completions were above average during the boom, but not unusually so, particularly in light of the relatively restrained growth in housing supply during the 1990s (see chart 1). The bust, by contrast, dragged new construction to unprecedented depths. At the current rate, fewer homes will be added to the housing stock this year than in any year since records began in 1968.

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