During its recent Fall Construction Forecast, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), Washington, D.C., offered up some bullish forecasts for the housing market’s future prospects. According to this post, NAHB expects a 21% hike in single-family starts this year to 528,000 units and a further 26% climb to 665,000 units in 2013. Multi-family housing starts are expected to rise 26% this year to 224,000 units and 6% in 2013 to 238,000 units.
Mark Zandi, Moody’s Analytics, was the lone economist at several NAHB construction forecast conferences back in housing’s heyday during 2006-2007 who was willing call what was happening back then a “bubble.” Today, he is apparently quite bullish about the U.S. economy’s growth prospects and is pegging much of his forecast on a robust housing market. At the NAHB event he reportedly forecast GDP growth in the 2% range this year and next, and “double that growth closer to 4% in 2014 and 2015.”
The NAHB post says he also “expects job growth to go from two million per year to closer to 3 million in 2014 and 2015.” “A big part of this optimism is the housing market,” said Zandi in that post. “I expect 1.1 million total housing starts in 2013, 1.7 million to 1.8 million in 2014 and over 1.8 million in 2015.”