When you look at all numbers for existing and new homes it appears that while housing is not declining significantly, it is not yet contributing to the V shaped recovery people are looking for. In fact it looks very L’ish, which will eventually make a U turn toward heaven. The question is how long will the purgatory of “L” last?

The National Association of Home Builders survey for December shows there has not been any significant increase in demand for new homes. The sharp increases in May have pulled back and even the New Home Buyer incentives did not increase new home traffic. The chart below shows that levels for all 4 indexes are back down to those of early 2008.