March column for Builder & Developer magazine now online

My column for the March 2015 issue of Builder and Developer magazine is now posted online.

For this issue, entitled "The Housing Rebound Continues, Version 2.0" I wanted to revisit the state of the economic rebound as well as the slow recovery in the housing market.  An excerpt:

Last December, I wrote about a slow but steady housing rebound that seemed to suggest an even stronger 2015, and this is certainly still the case. However, more updated economic information from the fourth quarter of 2014 and the first part of 2015 seem to point to a different type of animal: Look for 2015 to be the year that we see the continued return of the retail buyer, and especially the first-time home buyer...

Until the prime-age employment-to-population ratio rises from the current 77.2 to closer to 80 percent, the U.S. economy likely won’t see consistent and meaningful wage growth. It is mainly due to this weakness in wage growth— along with inflation that remains below its target of two percent and the decline in GDP during the fourth quarter of 2014—that Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has continued to postpone any hike in short-term interest rates...

To read the entire column, click here.

To read the entire March 2015 issue in digital format, click here.