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A housing renaissance has begun. This may be hard to believe after the dizzying, six-year-long crash in home sales, construction and house prices. But housing turned the corner last year, and it will take off in 2013.

If we allow more development, it will bring housing affordability.

It is time to move on. House prices won't rise and the economy won't fully engage until more distressed properties are resolved and put back into ordinary use.

So, we're saying, if we can give developers and builders incentives to cut down on the regulatory barriers that are faced in this country, then we might be able to address the needs of affordable housing.

We've given more resources. On housing, we are now establishing a regional housing pot.

Preserving the 30-year prepayable fixed-rate mortgage - it's like the bedrock of the housing system - is critical.

There are tremendous barriers to building housing. If we could break them down, the need for rent controls would go away.

I'm proud to report that in 2004 alone, we approved 3,600 new units of housing - our best year ever!

In 2007, in the early 2007, everybody saw the housing market was falling, and at any given moment a lot of people thought it was going to fall more, and a lot of people thought it was going to rebound. You just didn't know.

The most critical factor subduing the demand for housing is that home ownership is no longer seen as the great, long-term buildup in equity value it once was.