Young adults spur U.S. home figures

USB Securities’ Maury Harris and HIS Global Insight’s Patrick Newport predict that between 750,000 and 1 million new households will be created in 2011, up from just 357,000 in the year ended March 2010. Last year was the lowest on record, according to Bloomberg News.

Young adults are starting to leave parental homes at the fastest rate since 2007, spurring consumption, boosting U.S. housing starts and off-setting an inventory of vacant properties. This is perhaps due to a backlog of young people who’ve been waiting for the economy to pick up before moving out. The Census Bureau reports that U.S. household formation in the three years ending March 2010 was 2.3 million short of the long term average.

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Brad Hunter, chief economist and national director of Metrostudy, predicts that new households will help push housing starts to around 648,000 this year and 900,000 in 2012. That compares with just 586,800 last year. [Bloomberg News]