You’re a builder. So what do you do? You build! And that’s probably where you concentrate most of your energy and attention. After all, it’s your skill and knowledge as a builder that make you valuable to your clients, right? But wait — exactly who are your clients and what do they want? BUILDER recently talked about [...]

Positioning your business for 2013 Housing Zone “We interviewed a number of top remodelers about how they are positioning their business in 2013, and the top challenges and opportunities they expect to face. We asked them to reveal their keys to a successful 2013.” Australian Banks Try to Stimulate Home Building New York Times Here’s [...]

Last month, Time declared that the housing market was on its way to recovery. Here are some reasons they came to that conclusion: Multifamily housing has had a recovery. It’s a good time to be a landlord, and rental rates are high and vacancies are low. After the multifamily housing sector has recovered, prices will supposedly stabilize [...]

Two Big Builder Failures Show We’re Not Yet Out of the Woods BUILDER “Just in the last few days, in a reminder of how treacherous home building remains, two of the biggest companies in the business have gone under. First, Minnesota’s Rottlund Homes, during its heyday the 40th largest builder in the country, announced that it would liquidate. [...]

With the housing market continuing to decline it’s not difficult to guess at what keeps people from buying: it’s the economy, stupid! With people being laid off, working at reduced pay or worrying about getting laid off, fear is a powerful motivator for letting houses sit on the market. But it’s not the only thing. Over at [...]

NAR: Pending home sales up 5% in March, continue upward swing HousingZone.com “Home-sales contract activity has now increased six of the past nine months, as the Pending Home Sales Index saw gains in March, according to the National Association of Realtors. The index, a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings, rose 5.1 percent to 94.1 [...]

Foreclosures fell 26% in Dec., but 2010 filings set a record USA Today “The pace of foreclosures has slowed since revelations that thousands of foreclosure documents may have been improperly prepared, but for all 2010, almost 2.9 million U.S. properties received foreclosure filings, a record high, and up 2% from 2009.” 7 down payment assistance [...]

Hire Locally Will Become the Law in San Francisco New York Times “Under the ordinance, city contractors and subcontractors working on city-financed construction projects worth $400,000 or more would be required to hire at least 20 percent of their workers from San Francisco. The requirement will increase by 5 percent each year until it reaches [...]

…then beggars would ride. The old children’s nursery rhyme seems to have some resonance in this current housing market. Two recent report from Housing Giants and Professional Remodeler offer semi-conflicting reports about where the housing market is going and Americans’ views of what home ownership means. Housing Giants reports that demand is going up for [...]

Marketing Tips for Green  Homes EcoHome “Energy efficiency, water savings, and health issues are the three green hot buttons that most consumers respond to, a panel of industry experts told attendees during the Greenbuild International Conference & Expo in Chicago. But officials of Pulte Group, American Standard, and USA Today also said that buyers not [...]