The subprime mortgage mess could delay a much-anticipated rebound this year in the housing market across South Florida and the nation, industry officials said Thursday.

David Seiders, chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders, said the subprime fallout has caused him to change his overall housing forecast. The increasing threat of mortgage foreclosures could put even more homes on the market. Nationwide there are already 1.4 million excess vacant units for sale, Seiders said. "Some markets will really be in the doldrums for quite awhile," he said during a conference at the Westin Diplomat in Hollywood.

Seiders expects further price declines in South Florida and other areas. But he said he doesn't expect the slumping housing industry to drag the nation into a recession.

He was more optimistic in February while delivering his 2007 forecast at the International Builders Show in Orlando. Seiders said then that he expected the market to rebound toward the end of the year.

But that was before revelations of trouble facing subprime lenders, who target borrowers with weak credit. Those people are having trouble making the monthly payments and some are losing their homes to foreclosure.

Ara Hovnanian, CEO of Hovnanian COS., said "I'm a bull long term on housing. But the short term is not so rosy."

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-0412housing,0,2817313.story?coll=sfla-news-sfla