Is it possible to link to that report or is it unavailable to the public?

It was sent to me, and I don't see it online. But I've just uploaded the PDF so you can click on the link to read it.

Jamie, I think the answer to your question of "When" we will see a sustained recovery cannot be answered with a date, but rather a dollar value.

I believe the answer to your "when" question is: When we return to 1999 prices. Pre-internet and credit/debt fueled bubble values. Adjusted for deflation, I believe these should be very near 1999 nominal values. This would crush those who bought into the housing bubble.

On what date will this occur? Who knows? With the degree of government meddling into the free market, it could be a 20 year decline (Japan style). Without the bailouts, TARP.HAMP, tax credits, etc, we may have already been there and be on our way of rebuilding from the ashes.

that is my 2 cents on the dollar

Why are we building new houses when we have a massive inventory of existing homes?

I still don't understand this..

WELCOME TO THE SUMMER OF RECOVERY. We are heading in the right direction. Things are going the right way. So says Joe Biteme Biden.

Nancy pelosi said the passage of ObamaCare will create 400,000 almost immediatly.

"HealthMarkets, the North Richland Hills-based seller of health insurance, laid off 70 employees this month and expects to trim 180 more positions by the end of the first quarter of 2011, according to a recent federal filing.

In the Securities and Exchange Commission filing, HealthMarkets blamed the layoffs on “dropping enrollment levels experienced by the company’s insurance subsidiaries,” along with national healthcare reform and “related legislative developments.”

"HealthMarkets provides insurance plans to the self-employed, individuals and small businesses."

About 50 full-time jobs will be eliminated at the HealthAlliance Hospital — Leominster Campus, and one of two planned expansion projects may be cut back.…Ms. Burke attributed the cuts to health care reform, with its reductions in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, along with cuts in private health insurance reimbursements and increasing co-payments for patients"

Keep this in mind on 11-2!

Hope and change has FAILED BIG TIME!

Now we are all HOPING for a little CHANGE to pay our bills!

Hold onto your shorts everyone...the Obama recession is coming to a neighborhood near you and neither the Narccisist in Charge or any of his henchmen know how to stop it! A drop of up to 30% of the stock market has been predicted to occur sometime in the next 6 months and people will lose most of what equity is left in their homes. That equity is the majority of money most folks are depending on to retire. When that happens, all bets are off as to how the populace will respond to the ineptitude eminating from Washington.

In case you didn't pay attention during past recoveries...they all began with some faith in elected leadership, tax cuts, a reduced regulatory environment and hope for a job for all. NONE of these things can be hoped for or expected out of the Obama Administration. An economic recovery for America will not take place until Obama and anyone who shares his ' redistribution of wealth' ideology is out of office. Large employers and monied corporations will see to that.

A "sustainable recovery" won't occur until the government gets out of the private market so the free market can work on its own. What has the government done for us lately?

1. TARP $700 Billion
2. Stimulus $878 Billion
3. AIG $70 Billion (or more)
4. MBS Purchase ($1.25 TRILLION)
5. GM Bailout $50 Billion
6. Fannie and Freddie Bailout $150 Billion and counting (total expected to top $ 1 TRILLION)
7. Teacher Union Bailout $28 Billion
8. Quantitative Easing Part 2 (will soon buy Treasuries)

I am sure there are a few others I am leaving out (such as healthcare that has not kicked in yet). .The point being, more money has been thrown at this and the end result is the same. Keynesian economics has proven disastrous. The government can't solve this problem. We don't have a normal cyclical recession. This is a "structural" problem.

Look back at the recession in '01 and '02. How did we get out of that recession? The housing market has led us out of 7 of the last 8 recessions. In the last recession, home values went up and people were allowed to use their equity to consume more goods. Spending went up because consumers could easily get credit to buy more goods and services through their phantom equity. Now, home values have fallen off a cliff, credit is hard to obtain, and there is MUCH less equity in those that have it. Consumption has to go down and savings go up.

The ONLY reason GDP had risen the past few quarters is because the government spent money while the consumer was not. While the "Consumption" component of GDP went down, the "Government Spending" component went up to compensate for that difference. It does not take a genius to figure out that when that extra government spending goes down, we will soon see another negative GDP number in the near future.

Here are a couple video clips that sum up the housing market pretty nicely.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t_qa0VXgBg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCx-EWwh0IA

Also, you may want to do a little research on the "Hindenburg Omen". This is a technical indicator of the stock market and has predicted EVERY market crash, including the Great Depression. The Hindenburg Omen predicted the most recent stock market crash in.... September 2008. It has now been validated as of August 20th, 2010. Another stock market crash could be on the horizon. Although it is not 100% accurate, it has a 77% success rate in predicting a market downturn. Just Google "Hindenburg Omen" and you can see for yourself. The person who discovered this technical indicator announced the other day he has sold all of his stocks and is in 100% cash. That should tell you something.

Something to think about...

Didn't Ben Cardin say it was a good time to buy a home last year? Why did he say that if it wasn't true?

"Even after many inducements and one year of economic recovery..."

Uhm... What recovery? People are out of work and those who aren't are still paid their 2007 salaries. Combine this with tightened credit requirements and one doesn't have to be an economist or to speak in long and fancy terms to realize that the real estate prices aren't going up any time soon, unless there is inflation.

@Matt - We're building the new homes because the owners of the existing homes are still trying to sell their "lovingly maintained" disco era split foyers at the bubble-top prices.

Frank makes a good point...

I firmly believe we are going to continue to have challenges with our economy until the housingmarket is fixed, and as long as house continune to lose value, more house will go into foreclusure, therefore driving prices down further. It seems like a never ending situation. We need quick action to stop the foreclosures, implement a balance reduction program, something. Less people will be will to default if they have equity, or at least know they are at break even.

Florida Home Loan, I disagree 100%.

If necessary (and I believe they are) price reductions including massive defaults and foreclosures are the cure.

Allowing the free market to set a realistic price of a home based on income, creditworthiness of borrowers, debt-worthiness of lending institutions, and value of the middlemen (example: realtor, home appraiser, and the other go between minions get paid $10-12 bucks per hour of actual work) will lead us to the nirvana of true home price discovery.

As is necessary, the home ATM crowd will have to pay dearly for their excesses.

Florida, ya need to quit looking to Uncle Sugar for the handouts and face reality. What goes up must come down. Newton Rules.

It seems as if there is sufficient number of houses available. Why is it so tragical if there is no need for building new ones?

I guess I see it as the divide between the rich and poor. Housing prices went through the roof, and the poor (like me and 90% of everyone else), didnt win out.
Hey, I bought a house in 1993 for $39500 and it rose to $250,000 in 2004(compared to next door neighbor's smaller rowhouse); I knew it was BS. Prices need to come down, so people can afford something.
Still way too inflated(in my opinion).
The building up of downtown and the suburbs was great, but it was too much and there are tons of condos and houses.
The private market or govt market, repub or dem, doesnt stop the stupidity of us humans, or the natural ebb and flow of capitalism. I think the best thing is to raise taxes on the top 1%, but they (Goldman Sachs , etc) control everything.
Look at developers! They want to make money and tear up neighborhoods, but then they run out of money and abandon it (look at 1900 E Baltimore and 1900 E Fayette and 100 E Orleans)
they moved people out of their homes! for "development." they suffer no consequences!
now we have fenced vacant lots, and the "developers" still are wealthy!
ok just venting. disagree.. but i think a major "correction" is needed and dont blame obama nor bush. blame us stupid americans!

I'm adding in my $.02 worth, since we're still in the market for a home.

I don't know when the housing market will see a turnaround. Based on my own experiences looking at lenders, realtors, and sellers, I don't think that many have learned the lessons of the past 5 years in the housing market. We now have a 60% downpayment for the price bracket we're looking at, but I don't trust lending institutions as far as I can throw them. We also have seen the bizarre questionnaires that others have reported in other media like the NYTimes, and I balk at filling them out. Realtors don't seem to know what to do with my husband and I, because unlike other buyers in our age group (upper 20s and lower 30s), we're not looking for the starter home--we want to live in our next place for at least 20-30 years. We're more like buyers in their 20s and 30s 40 years ago. And people who work with buyers like us have no real concept of how to work with buyers who are looking at a long view. Realtors keep pushing trendy-looking homes, most of which have been re-done by investment groups that purchased homes with the intent of "upgrading" and selling--in essence, expensive, high-end flipping. The "upgrades" artificially add as much as $300-$400 thousand to the price of a house that wasn't more than $250-300 thousand to begin with, with the price increases only being necessary for the investment group to recoup the costs of over-upgrading. Some realtors we've met during home tours have turned out to be members of said investment groups. We still see signs advertising new housing development communities from K. Hovnanian and others in the 'burbs.

In the basement? Recovery? Things getting better? Hmmmm....

As a mortgage banker I can tell everyone that it is harder to close a loan today than it was last month and the month before that. ->> http://tinyurl.com/2eeohvw

Credit - Consumer credit scores are declining ->> http://tinyurl.com/269c7ld

Housing Values - Just had an appraisal done in an exclusive neighborhood in Annapolis. Appraised for 930k in Nov 2007... today it appraised for 540k... client owes 740k (80% LTV) and his interest only arm is about to double his payment. This client has excellent credit, huge income and liquid reserves. He is also almost 200k upside down and can't finance out of an adjustable rate mortgage. Consumers in this exact situation who have the ability to repay a mortgage are choosing to walking away and rent the same house for half the expense.

Income - Not only is monthly income declining, the disposable income consumers have remaining after the "must pay bills" is not being used to help the economy as more people are stashing cash. Don't let unemployment reports fool you. When a consumer who previously made 100k+ in income a year gets laid off or shuts down their business and now must settle for a 50k a year job just to survive...well does that really reflect a true employment report? This person is not spending money and probably is choosing what debt to abandon.

The recovery will not begin until everyone stops pointing the finger at what caused the economic tsunami and turns their focus on what actually can fix it. Overspending? Money mismanagement? Using the home as an ATM? -- take a look at this video people - http://tinyurl.com/24fpehp

Housing market in the basement? I don't think we finished walking down the stairs yet....

I find it funny that all of you free-market proponents are the same smarmy swarm who are railing against the Park51 mosque. There was property available to buy and a group with the necessary funds bought the property at market value. It is theirs to do with what they want - Free Market!

To every potential buyer on here remember 1 thing: every effort made to prop up housing is costing you directly.

To every owner/wannabe seller on here: your house can only sell for what a buyer is willing and able to pay.

There is only 1 way to make housing more affordable and that is to lower the price of housing relative to one's wages. To do that you 2 options.

1. Increase real wages, something that would take real economic growth which is beyond the grasp of those in charge.
2. Use central planning to distort the price of housing such as using a Xerox machine to drive down mortgage interest rates.

Aside from the injustice and unfairness of the 2nd option, it also has its limitations as Lewis just pointed out, people can't qualify for these loans. Under the Keynesian IS-LM model (which our central planners adhere to), there's a concept known as the "interest rate sensitivity of demand" which says that past a certain point lower interest rates will have little to no effect on increasing the demand for money. It's like pushing on a string.

When tasked with screwing in a light bulb, a classical economist would figure out how to turn the light bulb into the socket. A Keynesian economist would try to figure out how to turn the house around the light bulb. Instead of letting the housing market fall into a price level that the economy would bare, we are trying to turn the economy around to fit housing prices.

I’ve always thought that Darwin Rules was a nut job (no offense meant) as he has constantly proclaimed that home values will fall to 1990’s levels.

With the way that things are currently going I must say that he may be on to something. Things are beginning to look really bad.

To those of you who currently own a home, or looking to buy a home, you may want to read this....

http://www.businessinsider.com/15-signs-that-the-us-housing-market-is-headed-for-complete-and-total-collapse-2010-8

We are on the front lines as a local builder and developer in Southern Maryland. People are buying, and taking advantage of low interest rates. We are documenting our housing starts, and development each day on our blog. Although values have remained flat, we still recognize that people want homes. It's not all bad news.

I believe that the housing markets needs to be fixed to reduce falling prices. Foreclosures are having a major impact on the real estate prices which needs to be sort out. Too much development also needs a review to prevent reckless construction.

Housing prices need to come down and correct like the market wants them to. The amount of money people are throwing away on their homes is insane. Lower home prices = more cash in peoples pockets = more money being spent on goods = stronger economy.

If we are a nation of consumers what good does it do if we can't consume because housing prices are inflated way beyond wages????