The U.S. housing market is likely to keep growing this year and beyond, according to experts who took part in an NAHB webinar.
The panelists for Wednesday's National Association of Home Builders 2015 Spring Construction Forecast Webinar said employment gains, low mortgage rates and high demand ensure the market will continue to be healthy.
"This should be a good year for housing, buoyed by sustained job growth, rising consumer confidence that is back to pre-recession levels and a gradual uptick in household formations," said NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe. "We expect 2016 to be even better, due to a significant amount of pent-up demand and an economy that will be entering a period of reasonable strength and consistency."
Crowe estimated that the Great Recession cost the market 7.4 million home sales in the last seven years.
"While some of these sales will never take place, this does indicate how many sales were lost as fewer households decided to move,” he said. “We expect at least some of these to return in the form of new home sales as job and economic growth continue to firm."