Karl Smith has been predicting for a while that pent-up demand for cars and housing will start to drive economic recovery in the very near future. Today, he notes that auto sales are starting to rebound, apartment construction is up smartly, and private forecasters are starting to project nice GDP gains in the fourth quarter:
As long as Europe doesn’t destroy the world — and it very well may — I expect Multi-Family starts to be posting record highs by the end of 2012.
And I mean record, never before in American history will construction be started on so many apartment complex units.
I continue to think that debt constraints are going to keep growth reined in for a while, and that both Europe and China might have serious effects on the U.S. economy in the near term. Still, there’s also reason for optimism, and I think Karl makes about as good a case as anyone for it.
