Michael Shulman

U.S. Housing: Are Better Days Ahead?

With all due respect, analysts who are unfamiliar with housing should not write about housing -- we are not close to a bottom. The key to home prices and values is supply, and that has three legs -- new homes, existing homes and the new leg, foreclosed homes. We are building half a million new homes a year -- halff of what used ot be called a "bottom" yet inventories are rising. Existing home sales perked up a bit - -and at the June rate of growth they will equal 2007 sales in 2020 -- more than one third of homeowners have listed or want to list their home for sales and that backlog is growing. Foreclosures have yet to peak -- they ar rising and will rise until 6-9 months after peak defaults, which in turn occurs 306 months after peak mortgage resets, and that occurs in July of 2011. This is all public information, by the way......