I believe there are still a lower than normal number of people buying in our housing market.  Take a look at the graph above which tracks population growth over the past 12 years as compared to the number of single family home buyers in any given year.  If we assume that a normal percentage of all residents bought in 2000, we are still seeing a smaller than normal percentage of residents buying as of last year. 

Some might even argue that we should mark the start of the normal trend line somewhere between the number of 2000 buyers and 2001 buyers.  If so, then the current market has even further to grow before approaching a historically normal number of buyers per year, as shown below....