The Friday March 22 edition of the Wall Street Journal contained a nice surprise for us. The front page of the Marketplace section had the following headline “Plywood Becomes Hot Item as Housing Market Recovers”. What a breath of fresh air.

Not be a political but I lean toward skepticism regarding official government statistics. The WSJ article and mention of potential plywood shortages in the near term was the first legitimate sign of a housing recovery I’ve come across.

We need the housing market to recover. It is starting. Next we need the job market to recover. The commercial real estate market is not going to heat up significantly until employment gets going and more companies need office space.

We have a long ways to go but the sun is finally starting to break through.