'Echo boomers' to revitalize US housing market

NEW YORK: The children of baby boomers will eventually resuscitate the pummeled US housing market, Harvard University said yesterday, but in the meantime, limits on income and credit are sustaining the three-year bust.

The highest unemployment in almost 26 years, record foreclosures and rigid lending threaten to overcome emerging home sales progress despite unprecedented efforts by the Obama administration, Harvard's State of the Nation's Housing 2009 report said.

Echo boomers, the children of the post-World War Two baby boomer generation, offer a massive source of support for housing, the study said.