More good news this week for remodeling.
The market keeps growing, even while new construction continues to get battered. The latest is a report from BuildFax, which tracks monthly permit information and shows that remodeling activity increased in January for the 15th straight month and was up 22 percent over a year ago.
At the same time, NKBA members are...
On a snowy Washington morning last December, a group of us from Professional Builder had the privilege of spending a couple of hours with NAHB chief lobbyist Joe Stanton and key members of his staff. The purpose was to conduct an interview, which appeared in PB in February. Our aim was to simply get an update on upcoming issues facing builders. We had no...
By Jonathan Sweet, Editor in Chief
Posted 3/7/11
The battle to repeal the new 1099 requirements continues to move at a glacial pace.
(In case you missed it, you're going to have to start issuing a bunch more 1099s in 2012 if nothing changes. The requirement was included in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed last year. You can read more in our...
By Jonathan Sweet, Editor in Chief
Posted 2/16/11
In a report sure to cause some controversy, real estate research firm CoreLogic says that the National Association of Realtors is overestimating existing home sales by 15 to 20 percent.
The firm says that NAR is not taking into account the higher share of sales going through...
One of the big barriers to a housing industry recovery is the perception that there are a large number of vacant homes out there that are going to flood the market any day now.
That perception may be wrong, though, according to respected housing economist Tom Lawler. Lawler analyzed some of the preliminary data being released from the 2010 Census and says the numbers don't jive with those the Census Bureau was releasing for 2009 vacancy estimates.
He posted his findings today...
A preview of our February issue:
I’ve just gotten back from the International Builders Show, the industry’s big show for all things residential.
I’ve been going to the show since 2000 and this was easily the smallest one yet. That’s the bad news. The good news is that it was also the most optimistic I’ve seen people at the show since the housing boom.
2009 was sort of the year of shell-shock — the realization that after the financial...
1. Forget about it.
(For those in the Northeast, fuggedaboudit.)
Typically associated with senility and soft-mindedness, forgetting may be an asset in the coming months and years. Builders and remodelers must somehow purge the memory of the go-go housing market of 1995 to 2006. We will not see its like again for some time. But the memories of easy sales, fast turns of inventory, and lotteries to buy homes in new communities are strong.
I...
While conducting research for this month’s report on “16 Tips For Driving Consumer Traffic,” I came across an interesting fact about technology and consumer behavior.
Next year, for the first time, it’s expected that more consumers will access the Internet using a mobile device than a traditional desktop or laptop computer. The proliferation of smart phones like the iPhone and Droid — combined with the precipitous drop in price for these high-tech devices...
This past September, we wrote extensively about the state of builder and buyer financing, which no doubt is one of the most-difficult challenges home builders face today.
For weeks after the issue had hit our readers’ desks, I received nearly a dozen letters from builders stating how our special report was spot-on, and that they feel “stuck” without support from their traditional banking partnerships — stuck with land that cannot feasibly be developed, stuck...
Our cover story this month focuses on the opportunities being afforded by social media and the Web in general.
And although many remodelers aren’t buying into the social media movement, there’s ample reason you should be. (Our most recent survey on social media, published in the September 2010 issue, showed only 51 percent of remodelers ever visit social media sites, let alone...
