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Real editors gathered in Las Vegas this week to take measure of the housing market, and they got an earful from the home building industry. The Dallas News via the Lehigh Valley Business Cycle reports:

Higher lumber costs, labor shortages and growing regulations are holding U.S. builders back as they try to ramp up construction to meet the huge demand for housing.

After starting about 850,000 single-family homes nationwide last year, builders around the country are forecast to construct almost 910,000 houses this year and increase production to 1 million homes by 2020, said Robert Dietz, chief economist of the National Association of Home Builders.

The rise in construction still won't be enough, Dietz said at a meeting of the National Association of Real Estate Editors.

“We probably need about 1.2 million single-family starts,” Dietz said at a gathering in Las Vegas. “We continue to under build single-family housing.”

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