At first glance, the headline on coverage of the annual State of the Nation’s Housing report issued today by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies:
U.S. Housing Recovery Dependent on Jobs, Harvard Report Says:
…and an Ivy League degree will get you a ham sandwich:
Ok thats way too harsh, but in reality, job creation is THE important point – since we lost sight of that during the credit/housing boom (when consumers didn’t need to have a job to get a mortgage). In other words, job creation will be needed to carry the torch from the federal tax credit stimulus. Job creation as an offset to the rising foreclosure problem is the key.
>Even as the worst housing market correction in more than 60 years
appeared to turn a corner in 2009, the fallout from sharply lower home prices and highunemployment continued. Byyear’s end, about one in sevenhomeowners owed more ontheir mortgages than their homeswere worth, seriously delinquentloans were at record highs, and foreclosures exceeded twomillion. Meanwhile, the share ofhouseholds spending more thanhalf their incomes on housing waspoised to reach new heights asincomes slid. The strength of job growth is now key to how quickly loan distress subsides and how fully housing markets recover.
Right now, feedback I’m being in various housing markets across the US suggests home sales are falling sharply in the post-stimulus housing world.
We’d better get back to work.
