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Housing Starts Expected to Accelerate

NAHB economist predicts housing starts will climb 21 percent in 2011.


During an economic update Wednesday at the International Builders' Show in Orlando David Crowe, chief economist of the National Association of Home Builders, projected single-family housing starts to rise by 21 percent in 2011, reaching 575,000 units.

The estimate is slightly more conservative than the Dec. 30 projection of 716,000 housing starts this year by Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors. Both estimates assume sustained job growth, increasing U.S. population, as well as continued low interest rates driving construction.

Yun expects about 2 million jobs to be added in 2011. However, as NAHB presenter Frank Nothaft, chief economist for Freddie Mac, pointed out, 2011 got off to a slow start with nonfarm payrolls rising only by 103,000 in December. He called the figure weaker than expected.

 

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