Housing recovery is keyed to jobs
Economist outlines his forecast for 2010
By Roger Showley
Union-Tribune Staff Writer
The prospects of a recovery in the housing market next year depend more than ever on a pickup in jobs, the chief economist for the Mortgage Bankers Association said yesterday.
“If you look at past recessions, there was always quite a quick recovery,” said Jay Brinkman, previewing the remarks he’ll deliver today to the group’s annual convention at the San Diego Convention Center. “I don’t see that this time.”
The reason, he said, is that manufacturing is less of a factor than it was after the 1980s and ’90s recessions, when companies added shifts and reopened plants to respond to demand.