How the Housing market is directly affecting the rest of the economic market.

Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, says the housing recovery is now responsible for about one-third of the economy's growth and lots of jobs.

"Over the past year, I would say it's probably added about 300,000 jobs from the housing sector improvement," Yun says.

"New Jobs Being Added"

Some of those jobs were added at Synergy Design and Construction in Reston, Va.

Mina Fies, the company's chief executive officer, says 2012 "was just an amazing year for us: We grew about 40 percent in revenues.   We added three people, more toward the end of 2012.   And already we're tracking for 2013 to grow another 30 percent, and we're looking to hire at least another three employees."

 With construction workers going back to work, they need something to get themselves back and forth to work.  This need has directly affected the truck industry!


Pickup sales boomed in the U.S. in April. Sales were up by double-digits at 
Chrysler, General Motors and Ford.
So the housing recovery is supporting job creation in the factories of Detroit's automakers, too.   Those new pickup trucks would also come in handy in another part of the economy getting a boost from housing.   

Which rolls into new home owners wanting to spruce up their newly purchased homes!!  Jesse Eastman owns the Fort Collins Nursery in Fort Collins, Colo.

"We've seen a lot of new home construction around here in the least two years," he says. "So we've seen a whole lot of young couples, first-time homebuyers, young families coming in and doing all their shopping to install their own landscapes."
Eastman says the resurrection of housing helped boost his payroll and turn a couple of his company's former part-time jobs into permanent ones.

So auto dealerships, nurseries, furniture stores and many more businesses get positive knock-on effects from the healthier housing market.

Consumers  are Feeling More Comfortable

Economist Lawrence Yun says there's another, even broader benefit from the rise in home prices, which are up on average more than 9 percent in the past 12 months. 
Consumers are feeling wealthier and more confident.

"You have more families feeling more comfortable, given the rise in housing wealth, that's just general spending into the economy," Yun says. "It's also helping to lift the employment in the retail sector and other segments of the economy."

O'Sullivan sees that wealth effect just kicking in. He says housing could contribute a lot to growth and employment for the next couple of years!