Are more homeowners ready to sell? Listed “The latest data from Realtor.com found that the number of homes for sale increased 2.36% from February to March. While that doesn’t indicate a stampede of sellers, it may be a sign that at least sellers are ready to quit sitting on their hands.” Construction Groups Criticize Limits in Guest Worker Deal [...]

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 [...]

How to Keep Things Clean When Caulking Trim Fine Homebuilding “When you’re caulking trim, you’re going to have a lot of caulk left over on your fingers. You could just wipe it on your pants, or on a rag, or something else, but it’s going to get on everything. There’s a better way.” Home improvement [...]

Wood, Mortar, Magic New York Times “Their particular — and, frankly, peculiar — building method is called cordwood masonry. And in a three-day workshop over Labor Day weekend, they will again demonstrate its earthy alchemy. That is, how to create a masonry wall with short lengths of exposed wood in place of the usual brick [...]

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 [...]

Dear Builder’s Engineer: Advice for My Son Builder “Dear Builder’s Engineer, You write a lot about business savvy. I’m nearing retirement and want to pass along my design-build company to my son. What is the one most important piece of advice you would give in this situation? Frank R., Spartanburg, S.C.” Big Homes Are Back [...]

Death to the McMansion Slate “Let’s start at home. If you’re in a deleveraging, after you triage the crash, you need to create or find a massive pool of demand and an equally large pool of credit-worthy borrowers. Where is there a great pool of demand? Right under our noses. In fact, it’s us. There [...]

Green Building Megatrends for 2012 BUILDER “Yudelson unveiled a list of 10 other green megatrends destined for growth in 2012, both in the U.S. and abroad. And while, like the rest of the home building industry, green building will certainly face headwinds in coming days—such as squeezed budgets among families and governments—the market is poised [...]

Green Codes and Red Flags Daily 5 Remodel “Building codes in your jurisdiction: Do you think they go too far or not far enough to encourage energy-efficiency and sustainability?”  NAHB Builder Confidence Index increases in October Calculated Risk “The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) reports the housing market index (HMI) increased in October to 18 from 14 [...]

Usual growth leaders absent from recovery New York Times “Why has the job picture been so bleak in the current recovery? A large part of the problem can be traced to unusual weakness in two categories: construction jobs and government jobs.” 9 tricks for creating a super model HousingZone.com “Believe it or not, if you [...]