Housing starts are up 24 percent from a year ago, but residential construction employment is up only 3.1 percent, according to the U.S. Commerce and Labor Departments. Former construction workers headed to higher paying jobs, such as the trucking industry. Some in the Southwest headed north to the newly thriving energy sector, said Marquis Jackson. Others headed to highway construction jobs in Texas.

(Read More: Job Creation Surges as Rate Falls to 7.7%)

In Las Vegas, where Pardee Homes is building 150 percent more homes this year than they did last year, finding workers is increasingly difficult.

“We lost quite a bit of labor to the oil fields and to places like Wyoming and North Dakota, where you would not expect it to go,” noted Klif Andrews, Pardee’s Las Vegas president.

Andrews said he is paying workers five to ten percent more now, and that has pushed his home prices higher. “We’ve raised median home prices up over 15 percent, so we’ve been able to stay a little bit ahead of it, but cost increases, it’s not just labor, it’s also materials,” he added.

Nationwide, the median price for newly built homes rose 2 percent in January and new home prices now far exceed the median price for existing homes.

(Read More: Housing: Picking Up the Pieces)

Another factor is weighing on workers. Contractors, who hire the specialty workers for builders, are small businessmen themselves. In order to fund their operations, they need to hire people to have ready, and that takes capital. Unfortunately, despite the housing recovery, banks are still not lending freely to builders. Builders are trying to find ways around that, by paying subcontractors more frequently, essentially bankrolling them so they can hire more workers.

“The wheels are starting to work, but all the gears are not working in alignment,” said Marquis Jackson.

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100537494

Today, far more Americans are renting. In fact, all of the latest household formations, according to the U.S. Census, are in rental units. The home ownership rate, which reached a high of just over 69 percent in 2004, stood at 67.8 percent in the fall of 2007. Today it continues to fall, now down to 65.4 percent.

(Read More: Best US Housing Markets for Buyers and Sellers)

Perhaps the biggest difference in today’s housing market from 2007 is in mortgage rates and activity. In October of 2007, the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage was 6.38 percent. Today it is nearly half that at 3.67 percent. In turn, it is a tale of opposites. Refinance volume today is twice what it was in 2007, while mortgage applications to purchase a home are about half what they were.

(Read More: Soaring HousingStocks in Perspective)

In October 2007, the housing market was in the direct path of a massive foreclosure storm. Today, it is still picking up the pieces, with 5.3 million homeowners either delinquent on their mortgages or in foreclosure, according to Lender Processing Services. The good news is that the numbers are coming down, but the clean-up is far from over.

(Read More: How We Got Here, Where We’re Going)

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100419903