Economists assigned blame for the short supply of housing during a real-estate conference in Miami, The Wall Street Journal’s Kris Hudson reports.
“Frank Nothaft of CoreLogic and Stan Humphries of Zillow named as a primary factor a persistent lack of equity four years into the housing recovery for a large section of U.S. home owners,” Hudson writes, quoting what Humphries said at the conference: “One in three homeowners either has negative equity or very little equity in their homes.”
On the other hand, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors Lawrence Yun said that the inventory shortage is due to a lack of new construction. “We will still have an inventory shortage if builders won’t build,” Mr. Yun said. “It is just simple math.”
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