When it comes to economic forecasting, there's nobody as authoritative as the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee. And here's what the committee said last week in a nutshell:

We see significant progress in the economic recovery underway, the labor market is still weak but showing signs of cutting losses, and we're going to keep interest rates at near-record lows to encourage growth during 2010.

What does that add up to for housing? Overall, it's a pretty favorable environment for growth in sales, new home building and even prices.

In fact, last week produced evidence that those trends are well underway already. New home starts jumped by 9 percent in November, according to the Commerce Department, after dropping the previous month.

Starts were up in every region of the country. That's good, but a big chunk of the gain was attributable to apartment project starts.

Starts of new, detached single family homes were up just 2.1 percent for the month.

More noteworthy were the new permits builders pulled for future starts of new homes -- they jumped 5.3 percent.

Meanwhile, sales and prices in major markets were positive for the month of November.

For example, in the six populous counties that make up California's "Southland" -- that's Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernadino and Orange -- sales in November were up 15 percent over where they were in November of 2008, according to research firm MDA DataQuick.

Sales of newly built houses were 25 percent higher -- and hit their highest monthly total for the year.

Median prices in southern California were up as well in November by 2 percent. That was the first month since September of 2007 when the median price was higher than the year before.

And here's some holiday cheer for Realtors: A new national survey of 1,000-plus home owners by Coldwell Banker found that fully 20 percent said Congress's creation of the new $6,500 "repeat buyer" tax credit makes them MORE LIKELY to purchase a home early next year than they were six months ago.

Adding 20 percent to the potential home purchase market is huge on a national scale, so the first four to six months of 2010 should be busy ones.

Finally, as we began warning here at Realty Times a couple of weeks ago, mortgage rates are trending upward - reflecting the rebounding economy.

Average 30-year fixed rates are now just under 5 percent, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, and could rise by another quarter of a point in the coming months.

So if you're timing a sale or purchase, keep a special watch on interest rates.

Published: December 22, 2009

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

Kenneth R. Harney writes an award-winning, nationally-syndicated column on housing and real estate from Washington, D.C. He is also managing director of the National Real Estate Development Center, a professional education company. He is a past member of the Federal Reserve Board's Consumer Advisory Council, a committee that by federal statute reviews all Fed actions on home mortgage, consumer credit and banking industry regulation. He served as a member of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Working Group on Computerized Loan Origination (CLO) systems, and is a member of the Editorial Board of the Fannie Mae Foundation's journal, Housing Policy Debate. He is the author of two books on mortgage finance and real estate.