When 2011 ended, it was the third year in a row of awful single-family home construction. The 2011 year was actually the worst year ever. However, there was a glimmer of hope at the end of the year that signaled a possible recovery.

In December, home builders started building 657,000 homes across the U.S. The Commerce department said that building permits stayed the same and apartment construction, which was already dead, dropped even farther. The number of homes that single-family home builders broke ground on this year is half of what experts say is needed to be considered a healthy economy. the housing market is still many years away from a full recovery.

Single family home builders broke ground on over 428,000 homes in 2011, which is the fewest in the last 50 years. That’s pretty scary. Economists all say that the single family homes make up 70% of the market and are a key indicator of the housing market rebound. One thing that makes it hard is that new purchases are also down and are at a 50 year low. With the crackdown of the government on the lenders and banks, no one wants to give out any money. People that normally would be able to get a loan cannot because they do not have perfect credit. There is fear in the market, and there will be for a while.

Since many homeowners walked away from their homes when things became impossible to afford, there are an overload of empty homes. These are homes are much cheaper for the buyer that building a new home – experts say about 30% cheaper. So many are looking at buying existing homes, since there are so many to choose from, rather than paying too much to build new.