Home Construction Plunged Last Year (24.8%)

Source: AP via Yahoo!News



Read more: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080117/economy.html

that crap was out of control!

Since all new housing construction (around here in SE PA anyway) is big "luxury" houses and townhouses costing 400,000 and above, if the market is just tapped out. If a builder built a bunch of smaller homes priced under 200K for us poor working people, there would be lines of buyers for miles. Nobody builds bungalows anymore. Remember "starter" homes?

might be 200,000$ soon but they way the build them (slap together) I wouldn't live in one. My sister in law can see outside in her closets because the drywall doesn't meet the floor. Houses are cracking, floors warping etc. That is what you get these days- Our inspector told us he had a house that was 8 months old cost 560,000$ it was condemned (Iowa). You can sue the contractor builder etc but they are no longer in business.

I knew a guy who bought a rushed together house. The stair banister wasn't even sunk, the main supports were just nailed to the surface through the sides. You could see the shadows from nailheads against the sheetrock when you held a light to the wall. The room above the kitchen seemed to be warping down the ceiling.

The workmanship was amazingly poor.

the cost of new housing and cannot get a loan anyway because they are making minimum wage, what the hell do they expect? You can't keep building speculation homes in the $300,000 to $1,000,000 price range and expect to sell them to people that can't afford the mortgage they have now, let alone upgrade to a new home.

Developers keep raping the land and building these editions like there is no tomorrow. The only reason they do this is to stay in business. If a developer isn't building on virgin land, he is going to go out of business. It has worked well up until now with the predatory lending but those days are over. Now the chickens will come home to roost and it will not be a pretty sight.