REAL ESTATE : Builders Expect Housing Shortage After Slump Ends

They don’t claim to know when the housing slump will end, but builders attending the biennial Barratt Business Round Table earlier this week in Irvine agree that when it does, it will go out with a bang.

The end of the current economic slump and an increase in the demand for homes in Southern California’s coastal counties will be accompanied by a tremendous housing shortage and yet another burst of price inflation, said Mark Frazier, president of Barratt America.

Because homes already built aren’t moving well in much of Orange and other coastal counties, builders have all but stopped putting up new homes, Frazier and other building industry insiders say.

In addition, savings and loans no longer are able to make construction loans and most banks are no longer willing, so a principal source of financing has dried up.

“So even if demand were back to normal, and we could get the (zoning) entitlements, we couldn’t build enough” to restore a balance of supply and demand, Frazier said.