For over five years now, people have been saying that homebuilders’ fortunes were about to turn a corner. And for over five years, that has been wrong.
But it is beginning to look as if this will be the year when some housing bulls are actually right—with the caveat that, as always with real estate, location matters.
In 2011, only about 300,000 newly built homes were sold in the U.S., down from a peak of 1.3 million in 2005, and the fewest since records began in 1963.
