Housing Watches Recovery Pass It By; Real Estate Slowdown Suggests an Adage May No Longer Be True
- President Bush's State of the Union address, January 1992 "And the old adage is coming true: As housing goes, so goes the economy."</br></br>Housing has proven power to turn recessions around, but something new is going on these days, White House pronouncements notwithstanding.</br></br>The national economy continues to slowly come back, but, for reasons still unclear, the housing industry's recovery has lost momentum. If the pattern holds, this will be the first time in the post-World War II era that real estate has not played a sustained, starring role in an economic recovery.</br></br>"Housing has played a part in pulling the economy out of recession, but it's not going to be the locomotive of recovery," said Norman Robertson, chief economist of Pittsburgh-based Mellon Bank.</br></br>Mark Obrinsky, senior economist for the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), said: "This has not been as strong a housing recovery as we typically have seen following recessions ... It just hasn't recovered at the same pace we're familiar with."