Are there actually contractors out there stupid enough to build new single family homes in this economic environment? I mean, even the formally stupid buyers are ignoring new homes for the huge bargains available on existing ones.

Get a grip on the facts. The TARP loans to banks amounted to around $250 billion. That money was returned by the big banks with interest over two years ago. The U.S. Treasury made a nice profit on that $250 billion of TARP loans.

Peter... to a point true.. however, they used Treasury dollars through Fannie and Freddie to buy the Toxic Assets that the banks held..

so basically, we took the "bad" assets from the banks with the money in our right pocket and put the bad assets in our left. We're still on the hook for the trash.

Isn't it funny how Americans can no longer purchase incandescent light bulbs and how they are being forced to subsidize green cars and green energy, yet at the same time being told that they need to buy houses instead of renting far, far, more efficient and far, far "greener" apartments?

Amazing how property tax revenue influences just what aspects Americans should be green about.(no doubt the property taxes of 100 seperate houses is far more than a 100 unit building)

The truth is that we don't NEED any more houses. The baby boomers, the biggest part of our population, are retiring and downsizing, and starting to die off. People have fewer kids, so there are less people to buy new homes.

Well put, Lisa. This, and the fact that educated and skilled people, in what should be their peak earning years, are facing a few years of unemployment, under-employment, and stagnant or declining wages/salaries. Then there are the student loans. No wonder they are not buying houses. I do not think a new home can be found for under $100,000 either.

Also, there are lots of household consolidating in order to pay for rents and mortgages. So you have more multi-generation households requiring less housing in total. Also, we're not that attractive to immigrants with no jobs, so a lot of them either leave or never come to begin with.

pewsocialtrends.org/2010/03/18/the-return-of-the-multi-generational-family-household/
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129578179

If you get your savior, Rick Perry, in office, the country will burn to the ground while he prays for rain.

Every generation millions of new homes and apartments are built. People die but the homes stay. Of course, there will be some new home construction, but the new home market will never "recover."

But maybe I should jump on the bandwagon and blame the democrats and/or republicans for everything.

According the the Census our population is growing more slowly than at any time in our history. Many of that additional population in 2050 will be seniors, and it is not likely they will be driving the housing market.

Seniors are a large portion of the buying population, at all times. They generally trade their "family" houses for something smaller. There's a reason why there's a boom of constructing "age-restricted" dwellings. Your logic doesn't make sense.

Then where is the demand for those "family" houses going to come from?

The population is growing by 2 million a year. If their parents move into smaller housing, those people are going to have to move out of the basement sooner or later.

A half million buildings burn to the ground every year. Why are we buying new cars? It's because they get old and fall down or become undesirable. If nothing new was built, we would all live in 1950s ranch houses now.

What's wrong with a 1950s ranch house? The upkeep is little different from that of a new construction home. Sure, I might need a new roof, but so will your newly constructed house eventually. Unless you think we should just throw away houses when they need a little maintenance just like we do nearly everything else. Cars are consumable. There are moving parts that will eventually wear out no matter how much upkeep you put into them. Houses don't suffer this fate. Basic maintenance keeps them livable for decades and generally for a much lower out of pocket cost than new construction. We build new because of vanity, not because of a lack of available quality older homes.

Old houses generally feature some or all of the following items: asbestos, mold, rot, 8ft ceilings, small bathrooms, small kitchens, etc., etc. It's the same logic why we don't drive 55 Chevy's still. Don't get me wrong, I like old houses (mine was built in the 1800s), but if you're going to buy an old house it better have good bones. The 50s ranchers were generally for GIs returning from the war and very small.

Old homes can be remodeled. They can be 99% torn down and rebuilt and that is not officially "new" construction.

Again, I say it's vanity, not necessity. I live in a 1954 ranch. Yes, it's just over 900 sq feet so by no means a palace, but it's ENOUGH for our household of 2 +cats. Yes, my kitchen is small but we remodeled for under $5000, more than doubled my cabinet & counter space, have a dishwasher, stove, fridge with ice & water in the door, a large collection of kitchen gadgets because I love 'em, everything I really NEED and then some. Bathroom's quite roomy, all things considered. more than twice the size of the one in the house I grew up in. A tub, a sink and a toilet. What more does a bathroom need? 2 reasonable sized bedrooms. Partially finished basement including my sewing room, a large laundry room, a workshop area and plenty of storage. Its solidly built and comes with the added bonus of a very reasonable mortgage payment that can easily be afforded if one of us was to lose our job. This is exactly where the construction boom went off course- people built a whole lot more than they needed and that came with a mortgage payment they couldn't afford with the slightest hiccup. Never mind that many of the rooms in the McMansions echo from the lack of furniture because no one could afford that, they were happy to have multiple huge bathrooms with whirlpool tubs and $3000 showers they can brag to their friends about but never use even if they could afford the water bills that would result. We somehow convinced ourselves en mass that we needed more space and for what?

A majority of that paper went to FHA, Freddie, and Fannie during the tax credit so while the big banks get paid to service the paper, they actually own very little of it. I'm in the business. The tax payer bit the bullet on this one. The banks are actually making money hand over fist right now contracry to what you are hearing in the media. Watch and see. You think Buffett made a 2 billion dollar play on bank of america without carefully analyzing numbers and holdings. Why do you think the guy has so much money. It ain't because he gives to the poor.

F-ing idiot. That's the attitude that got us into this mess. Clinton then Bush deregulated financial markets to the point where we are in this mess. It has nothing to do with Obama. Housing started dropping in 2005 and blew up in 2008. Bush was squarely in charge of that. The US wounds are self-inflicted and blaming a successful suicide victim usually falls on deaf ears.