HOUSING: Over the Peak?

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Marriages & Mortgages. Despite all this, most home builders think the potential demand far from satisfied. They think that if credit restrictions are relaxed, as they hope they may be soon, buyers will swarm back into the market. They are also hopeful that mortgage money will become plentiful again—and it looks as if it will. One reason: savings accounts are rising abnormally, and since interest rates paid on them are also going up, banks will have to put the money to work.

Nevertheless, the fact is that the frenzied building of the past six years has just about eliminated the war-caused backlog, and new demand based on population growth is slowing down. Last year the marriage rate was 30% below 1946. It is expected to keep dropping for another five years at least—and house building with it—until World War II's crop of babies grows up and starts getting married.