Index Gauging Future Outlook For The Battered (Building) Industry Is At Its Lowest Point In 9 Months

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON — The outlook among homebuilders has been grim all year. This month, it became grimmer.

An index that measures builders’ sentiment for their industry fell three points in June to 13, the National Association of Home Builders said Monday. That’s the lowest level in nine months. And it’s just five points above the lowest reading on record, in January 2009. That’s when the home market was absorbing the brunt of the housing bust.

Any reading below 50 indicates negative sentiment about the market. The index hasn’t reached that level since April 2006, the peak of the housing boom.

Builders are finding it “extremely difficult to construct a new home and sell it at a price that covers the costs,” said Bob Nielsen, chairman of the homebuilders’ trade group and a builder from Reno, Nev.

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there was a glut of new homes not being bought before the market took a nose dive...they were even offering making 6 month payments of mortgages, new cars, media rooms etc. just to sell the homes then...now I don't know what they can use for incentives. They also haven't been keeping up the properties...brand new houses - never lived in and turning to junk...whole sub-divisions with maybe one or two houses occupied...


Of course like auto dealerships these construction companies have been used to channel political contributions to their campaignes...home contractors here that ran for office: Neumann and Paul Ryan...I know there were more but have forgotten their names..so they likely kept building when there was no demand to keep the money for campaigns laundered.

Construction definitely was the lifeblood of the E. Coast, which no longer has any other type of industry at all. The majority of politicians and "planning" and zoning officials (many of whom take/took bribes to get unpopular projects through) demonstrated time and again they could not care less about the ruination of the landscape via sprawl, water quality, wildlife habitat or the huge growth of school populations with schools totally unprepared for the influx of kids from housing developments.

The whole thing deserved to end but it's too bad there is no industry to fall back on for most workers.