The number of unsold new homes fell 34k in November, the most ever. There are now 372k unsold new homes for sale, significantly below the peak of 570k in June 2006.The level is approaching normal. The supply problem is in the existing home market. … I would expect inventories to decline at least 500k to 750k in 2009 because of the population/underbuilding issue. At least 500k will disappear from the underbuilding idea and a further 250k (at least) will result from low mortgage rates and incentives from Barack Obama to spur home buying (4.5% mortgages or tax credits or both).

The math on why this is happening is simple: the construction of new homes has fallen below that of household formation. Housing starts have recently been at about 600k annualized, which works out to about 400k new dwellings, because many new starts are restarts–tear downs and such. Birth statistics and Census Bureau data indicate that household formation will on average run at a pace of about 1.2 million in the current year and immediate years ahead, owing to population growth of about 3.0 million.

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