Zell: Expect housing market to stabilize this summer
I used to like reading the Chicago Tribune. It was a hefty newspaper. It wasn’t quite as thick as the New York Times, but it certainly was meaty. I considered it a compromise between the fluff of USA Today and the highbrow appeal of the Times.
Today, though, the Tribune, wracked by bankruptcy, is a shell of what it once was. Sections have been eliminated. Stories are now shorter. Top writers are gone.
I know the economy, and the struggles of the publishing world, are to blame. But I also like to blame Sam Zell, the real estate mogul who now owns the paper. He’s the one who authorized the gutting of the paper, to save money.
That’s why it pains me to have feature Zell in a post that touts more good news for the housing industry. I’d prefer my bearers of good news to be people I actually like. But Zell will have to do.
In a story provided by the Reuters news service, Zell says that he expects the U.S. housing market to stabilize this summer. Zell is just the latest business-world superstar to say that the country’s housing market is beginning to recover.
Zell pointed to a lack of new homes as the main reason for his prediction. According to the Reuters story, U.S. homebuilders are scheduled to build an estimated 350,000 new homes this year. That’s a big downgrade from just 2006, when homebuilders here built a whopping 1.7 million homes.
Of course, that oversupply helped start the housing slump. Hopefully, a more conservative home-building industry will help jumpstart the slugish housing market.
I also hope that this time, Zell is right with his prediction. The whole country is waiting eagerly for the U.S. housing market to begin its rebound. The truth is, until housing sales begin to pick up again, the odds of the economy digging itself out of its recession are slim.
