Economic and Housing Market Outlook Presented In Washington D.C.

As the National Home Association of Home Builders Board of Directors convened this week in our nation’s capitol, Robert Denk, Assistant Vice President of Forecasting and Analysis presented his outlook on the housing industry as it stands today.  Surprisingly, there are glimmers of hope and positive signs that we are seeing the long-sought stabilization nationally in the home building industry.  The Chicago real estate market has had its troubles during this slump but nothing that has reached the scale of some other areas of the country such as Arizona, Nevada, California and most of Florida.

As reported here in Chicagoland Real Estate Forum,  some segments of the Chicago home building market, particularly the “green building” and some urban multi-family developments are moving forward and seeing good to moderate sales.   Robert Denk’s report gives most home building professionals positive news that the industry is due for a recovery.  Some of the highlights of the report are summarized here:

• indications that the housing recession is recovering
• signs of prices stabilizing
• housing and production in relation to employment and population are beginning to balance back toward sustainable levels
• house prices, rising unemployment, inventory will be the key drivers and indicators of which markets will be best and worse in the coming 6 – 8 quarters

Robert Denk is Assistant Vice President for Forecasting and Analysis at the National Association of Home Builders. His responsibilities include developing econometric models of national, state and metropolitan area housing activity, as well as providing ad hoc analyses on a range of housing sector issues. Mr. Denk has been an economist in Washington DC for over 20 years working in the private, non-profit and government sectors.