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How dismal is the housing market, really?

Everyday, we hear about the number of sales in the housing sector declining. For example, check out this article today in the AJC.

The questions that I have are:

1. how many houses are going on the market compared to last year at the same time?
2. how many new houses were constructed compared to last year?
   

It's my guess that with the uncertainty lingering over our country, fueled by every media outlet in the country (world?) that a lot of people are choosing to just stay put. I know from multiple reports that foreclosures are higher than normal, but how many people is that affecting number-wise? Percentages don't help as much as real numbers in this case because there are just too many variables.

Also, since people are more hesitant about buying, it seems only logical that builders would be more hesitant about building. If there are no new houses to buy, can sales continue to rise, especially if people are choosing to be less transient?

I suppose the question that I'm really asking is are we looking at a growth/decrease/stability in the population in this area, not how many houses happened to be sold in a given month.