Recovery do-over

Residential Design + Build spoke to tw o housing economists about expectations for this year, and other observations beyond our survey results, and both remain cautiously optimistic as they were a year ago. "We are expecting for 2012 a total of 685,000 starts," says David Crowe, chief economist, National Association of Home Builders. "That's a 15 percent improvement over 2011. I'd say it's a modest increase, but it's a better increase than we've seen in this cycle.