David Seiders Market Quotations

Now what happens to the market depends on the interest rate structure. Long rates have been better than expected, but I think we can see them rising, moving into alignment with what's going on with the economy and with short-term rates.

I was obviously delighted to see this rebound. I think what it tells us is that the housing market is still fundamentally strong.

While new-home sales have been quite strong throughout 2005, we see a cooling of the market to a healthy and more sustainable pace in the months ahead, as substantiated by recent surveys of our builders. For 2006, we expect to see a 6 percent to 7 percent drop in sales, but certainly no reason for alarm. This would make 2006 the second or third best year in housing history.

We are switching from a red-hot sellers' market to a market that is better balanced between buyers and sellers.

The big builders are marking down their outlooks for 2006 and rolling out some sales incentives -- the sort of things we see when the market starts to weaken on the demand side.

This is definitely a good sign that the housing market is stabilizing.

The warmest winter weather on record is what is driving a lot of this. I think that is the key factor behind this very strong surge in housing market activity, and as we move forward I think we're going to see these numbers come back down a lot.

The retreat in housing-market activity that's now under way amounts to a simmering-down process from unsustainable market conditions in 2005, rather than a classic cyclical contraction that could spiral down for some time.

The housing market is seeking out a peak. While it is still too early to conclude that it has found one, there is growing evidence that the Fed has started to hit its mark and housing will begin losing some of its exuberance in the period ahead.

The key reason the market is losing momentum is a major decline in housing affordability measures as prices continue to move up aggressively in many, many markets around the country. There are reasons for the builders to be doing things to bolster demand, hold buyers in and limit cancellations, and I think that's what's going on out there.

There is now accumulating evidence that the housing market peaked somewhere in the third quarter. Our survey of builder confidence, which came out yesterday, was down a lot. . . . It was the biggest drop since the first survey after 9/11.

All the fundamentals remain in place, and the overall housing market continues to exhibit ongoing strength. Favorable mortgage rates, as well as strong household income and job growth, continue to bolster housing demand.