New data out this morning showed new home sales rose 0.2% to 467,000 in September. That may seem like a small number, but it’s the highest rate since July 2008. The government also revised down August’s blockbuster number from 504,000 to 466,0000.

Joe Brusuelas, Chief Economist at McGladrey is not impressed by the number. “It’s the same old, same old,” he said. “What we have is... a problem in the housing market that has to do with tight credit conditions. Even though the provision of private financial credit is up, it’s not translating to effective increase in loanable funds to people who are interested in a home.”

Still, that doesn’t mean he agrees with the administration’s new push to help people buy homes. Recently, CEO of Fannie Mae Timothy Mayopoulos said the housing giant would go back to its previous policy of buying home loans where buyers put as little as 3% down.

“I really think that they oughta re-think this 3% down idea,” said Brusuelas. He worries that this incentive will encourage people to buy homes beyond their reach and put them at risk for going under water on their homes – a big problem in the housing crisis. “Let’s hope this is just an electoral ploy… because I think this is a good example of bad policy.”

Related: America's housing policy: The definition of insanity

But there are more issues with the housing economy than just credit. There’s also a big tie in with jobs.

“The employment-to-population ratio of those aged 25 to 34 is lower than where it has been compared prior to the recession,” reminds Brusuelas. “Until those individuals are hired in mass numbers, and see increasing wages, you’re not going to get the demand for residential investment, which is very important to GDP.”

The unemployment rate is now below 6%, but wage growth during the recovery has been essentially stagnant.

“Typically in about 12 to 18 months you’re going to see wages rise,” but the increase will not be the 4% we’re used to – more like 2-2.5%.

The other mistake many of us try to make when understanding housing trends, said Brusuelas, is looking at housing as a national story when much of what drives the housing market up or down depends on local factors.

Median Home Sales Price by State | FindTheBest

“A lot of times, economists like myself make the mistake of looking at housing as a macro indicator and it’s really not. You have to go city by city, state by state, neighborhood by neighborhood.”

As for what to expect next from housing – which is seen as central to the health of the economy by everyone from economists to Warren Buffett – it should get better next year.

“Unless we have a really terrible winter we’ll see a big pop in starts, that’ll help on supply, that’ll bring pricing down, and those numbers are going to look much better in 2015,” said Brusuelas. But still, “we got a long way to go."

“When we get into the next business cycle I would expect that some of the demographic realties will take over. The 84 million Millennials? They’re going to enter the system. There will be demand for homes,” he said. Just don’t expect that to happen in this cycle.

As they say in sports – better luck next year.