If you're concerned about the prices of houses and apartments, keep an eye on the

mood of the people who build new ones. I'm David Brancaccio in New York. The main way

to ease the affordable housing crisis in America is to build more places to live. The Commerce Department's count of New Home Construction Projects just came in. It's for November,

and Construction of New Homes bounced back, rising nearly 15% with falling mortgage rates, helping people afford the projects.

The new construction will help with low inventory of houses, which is itself a problem these days since people who

are already owned at old school mortgage rates don't want to sell. I just spoke to

Lindsay Piexa, chief economist and managing director at the investment firm, Steefel.

We're going to have to see a significant re-pricing in the mortgage market in order to see a sizable

easing of this disconnect between housing demand and housing supply but any

steps in the right direction easing that cost of credit will help the

affordability rate for those potential homebuyers looking to come into the

marketplace which is why builders of new property potential homebuyers looking to come into the marketplace.

Which is why builders of new properties may be in this slightly more bullish mood about things

because it's clear that there are some takers for what they would build.

Absolutely. The new market could help to

replace some of the existing supply that typically is on the marketplace but

building a new property is certainly going to take a lot longer than turning over existing properties for sale

Lindsay Piegs is chief economist at the investment firm Stiefel. Thank you so much

Thanks for having me.

The stock market's now open for the day and the Dow is up 129 points, 4 tenths of a percent.

The S&P and the NASDAQ are each up 3 tenths percent in early trading.

Now here's the list of countries that will contribute

...