According to a CNN report, despite housing construction start numbers being up, contractors says actual construction is flat.

The official Federal government housing start numbers only indicate the number of construction permits approved by local governments.  Contractors say that banks are refusing to finance most new construction.

“Remember a couple of weeks ago when they came out and said guess what the recession was over? That rumble you heard was the construction industry laughing their ‘friggin’ brains out,” says contractor Paul Kinney, owner of a top 500 home building company in the United States.  Another problem is that some U.S. banks agree to fund a project, then, as the project is about to start, they cancel the funding.

Contractors are saying that most big construction projects that do get built, are being built with foreign money.