There was a little blip of pent-up demand created by cash buyers who have been sitting on the sidelines waiting for the best possible bargains… and there was the federal tax credit which created a handful (relatively) of new home sales…

But without a manufacturing-based JOBS recovery there wasn’t, isn’t, can’t be, and won’t be any kind of sustained housing/trades recovery. There can’t be.

What’s on the horizon to drive job growth? Nothing. We’ve sold our manufacturing capability offshore and to China.

There is one thing that could drive a substantial number of new jobs across all sectors (that doesn’t require a world war..) Residential energy retrofits. Old-school, nuts and bolts- according to some analysts this is an $840 billion market, much larger than anything the feds could do at this point. Check out this thread on our forum.

http://bit.ly/hRxuH

Joe Stoddard
Moderator and Contributing Editor
Business Technology/ The Journal of Light Construction