Gundlach on Housing: "The Kids Aren't Alright"

Bond guru Jeffrey Gundlach is expecting though times for the housing market — so tough that he’s shorting homebuilders.

Gundlach told onlookers at the Ira Sohn Investment Conference that the U.S. will never again see the days of 1.5 million annual housing starts, according to Yahoo! Finance/CNBC, as high student debt and scars left by the housing crisis have soured a generation of potential new homebuyers. He is short the SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF (XHB).

“I’m really surprised at how people are so copasetic about the homebuilders and the housing market,” Gundlach told CNBC. “You look at the data and it’s gotten really soft…. You look at mortgage applications, housing starts, [and] you look at new home sales in particular. They’re no better than they were at the so-called trough of the recession.”