Though there have been signs that the economy is slowlystumbling toward recovery, single-family housing demand andconstruction starts continue to struggle. Tight lending standards,combined with consumer skepticism toward the “American Dream” ofhomeownership, results in the obvious: Though development isincreasing somewhat, we won’t soon see a plethora of for-sale homessprouting out of vacant lots as we did during the mid-2000s.

According to the National Association of Home Builders, housingstarts in 2011 totaled 609,000 units, versus the 1.3 million unitsrecorded in 2007. NAHB found that there was also a decline in newhome sales between 2007 and 2011—776,000 homes were sold nationwidein 2007, but that figure dropped to 305,000 in 2011.

Anthony Souza, president of Tracy, CA-based Souza Realty &Development Inc., says things aren’t likely to change in the nearterm, either. In a normal home building cycle, he explains, there’dbe an uptick in single-family development. But the bust of the late2000s was anything but normal. “There’s still the big foreclosureoverhang that hasn’t been wiped out,” he comments, not to mentionthe issue of the so-called “government twins,” Fannie Mae andFreddie Mac. Furthermore, people are shackled to their homes forvarious reasons, mostly financial.