I was speaking with a construction manager who works with a national home builder yesterday. I was curious about his take on new home starts in 2007.  Last year saw a record in terms of new home starts.  Toward the end of the year inventory wasn't selling as quickly as earlier in 2006.  Austin area builders were offering greater incentives and bonuses to Buyer's Agents to get new homes sold.  What this guy told me was pretty much what I expected.  He said that new home starts are likely to slow a bit and inventory may remain high into the middle of the year.  We also talked about the national production builders and their weakness in terms of sales of new homes in what were hot markets until 6 or so months ago.  There has been talk about some builders turning to Texas markets to try to recoup lost sales from other markets.  I personally don't want to see new builders enter the market or existing builders without much of an Austin presence start building more homes in Austin.  I'd like to see the market firm up a bit more.