Building permits down 67 percent ... and this is a good thing!!!

I know, crazy fool! What is he thinking?
Well let me explain, I am talking about the figures just released from the town of Clayton, North Carolina where the building permits issued for new construction in the last fiscal year were 103, compared with 272 for the previous year. Not to single Clayton out but rather to use their numbers as an example of much of the area, in fact Clayton has done a very good job of managing its growth and looking to the future and will weather this storm in great shape.
How can this be a good thing? First of all, where would we put all those homes if the pace had kept up like that. How would all those people get to work? What schools would they go to? How many of those homes would go in cul-de-sac strips in the middle of a cotton field ( yep we still grow cotton down here).And how many of those homes would end up back on the market three years from now as a short sale or foreclosure.
The fact is, of course is that we would still be building like mad had it not been for the recession that came along to rain on the parade. So we are in a time out, when will it end...who knows?
We have homes sitting on the ground waiting for buyers. We have some homes that were built in 2005-2006 when there were 424 building permits issued for new construction appearing as short sales and foreclosures and complicating, to no end the process of selling homes. Homes that builders need to sell, that Realtors need to be paid on, that communities need to sell to complete their subdivisions,etc, etc.
So I'm all about selling houses, don't get me wrong but I am in Real Estate for the long haul and I want a regular pay check month in and month out, year in and year out.
Time and time again we have seen that a steady managable pace is a better long term approach to sustainable growth. So it's obvious, we need to move the homes on the ground, clear out the short sales and in tandem restore confidence in buyers... mmm. I don't know when all that will happen, but one thing we really need to do is get people off the notion that they are buying an investment!
It's a home! You pay for it, you can live in it!