Yellen Has Scant Power to Relieve U.S. Housing Slowdown

The hesitant housing recovery has surprised and concerned Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and her colleagues at the central bank. It’s not clear how much they can do about it.

While the industry is rebounding from a weather-ravaged first quarter, the pickup will probably fall short of previous projections, according to economists at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. of New York and Macroeconomic Advisers LLC in St. Louis. As a result, they trimmed their forecasts for economic growth in the second half of 2014 to about 3.25 percent from 3.5 percent.