Trends

The Crash Of Housing Construction

Written by Mint.com
Published Aug 10, 2010
1 min read
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One of the three main indicators economists consider when analyzing the real estate market is new home construction activity. To state the obvious, when there is a demand for properties, it makes economic sense for developers to step in and build new ones. But, as we saw in the recent real estate boom and bust, anyone can get caught in a frenzy and, in this case, build a few homes too many. The result: in 2009, new home construction hit its lowest point in this decade.

Today, we give you a two-part infographic. The map view gives you a visual presentation of construction activity throughout the country. The interactive graph view lets you see for yourself new-home construction activity by state between 2000 and 2009. By moving the cursor at the bottom of the graph, you will see that, for example, Florida developers went on a massive home building spree between 2003 and 2006, surpassing the number of new homes built in states like California and Texas, which have much larger populations. As the saying goes: hindsight is twenty-twenty. To see for yourself, click on the image above.