We still have renters to thank for healthier housing market

CNN Money
For all the good news we’ve heard about the U.S. housing market, some things still haven’t changed. Builders are breaking ground on more new homes than we’ve seen in years, but buyers aren’t exactly clamoring for them. For the past year, housing starts have risen by 37 percent. However, home sales haven’t kept up, rising only 9 percent during the same period, according to a report by Capital Economics released. In December, housing starts rose at the fastest pace since the summer of 2008. But at an annualized 954,000, that was far more than the 369,000 new homes sold during the same period. The gap doesn’t suggest that builders are overbuilding, like they did in those regrettable years when the market boomed on easy credit. They are overwhelmingly building for renters, not buyers. Which suggests that a healthy housing market may not necessarily call for more home sales, at least nowhere nearly as many as during the boom years.