On Friday, this blogger had the chance to attend a forum at the Builders Association of the Twin Cities about women in the building industry. It was a fascinating topic about an underrepresented group. According to the National Association of Women in Construction, women make up only 10 percent of the industry. Amazing! So why [...]

It’s an online world. More and more, people are using the Internet for information from the most basic (where is this business?) to more complex (what business has this company been involved in in the past?). If you don’t have a website — no, make that a good website — you stand the very good [...]

Green Building Goes on a Budget Wall Street Journal “Casa Feliz is one of a growing number of affordable-housing projects nationwide that have been built “green”—that is, with nontoxic materials, highly energy-efficient appliances, and features such as green roofs and solar panels. Thanks to tax credits designed to attract private capital and aggressive cost-cutting on [...]

Remodeling Magazine asks this provocative question: Are you a professional? Here’s a snippet of their argument: “These remodelers may earn a wage for what they do, but is there any profit earned to compensate them for the risks they take in owning and running a company? If the business is not earning a profit the [...]

Here’s a question from the Wall Steet Journal: If a city is shrinking and plagued by high unemployment, should it still earn the label of ‘most affordable’? The troubled city of Detroit was anointed that dubious honor on Wednesday by Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC., which released a report comparing the asking prices for four-bedroom, [...]

According to Professional Builder, there’s another reason that houses are becoming smaller and cheaper: first time home buyers. Professional Builder points out that 8.4 million households bought a home between 2007 and 2009. And how many of them were doing it for the first time? 41 percent. That’s a very significant minority. It stands to [...]

According to the Wall Street Journal, “Home builders, who aren’t selling too many homes these days, appear to be using their downtime to sharpen quality and service.” It makes sense. Without the housing boom engine powering sales, builders all over the country have to re-tool their plans. Of course, we’re not saying that a few [...]

The Web is full of valuable information about green building, home improvement, the housing market and first hand homebuilding experience and more. Today, we thought we would weed through some of those resources to compile a list of some of our favorites. No list like this could be comprehensive, but you should find some of [...]

Two recent articles from Twin Cities-based news site MinnPost have focused on the future of the urban landscape — on the suburban one, too. The first viewpoint comes from Richard Florida, author of the book “The Great Reset: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity.” In a nutshell, he believes that when [...]

The New Remodeling Rules WSJ – Personal Finance “According to an April 15 report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, annual spending on remodeling is expected to accelerate this year, with nearly 5% growth over 2009. This year could produce the first annual spending increase for the industry since 2006, the [...]