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Even in the best insulated, carefully detailed new home, you're likely to see energy loss in the same specific areas found in a home built in 1960 or even 1980, although to a lesser degree.
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Gold winners from the 2005 National Sales and Marketing Awards.
IT'S NOT EVERY DAY THAT A LOGO has so much symbolism and meaning attached to it. But for Braeburn, the name and the logo approach the level of icon. The project of 153 condominium suites is located in Seattle's hip, urban Capital Hill neighborhood, home to the city's youth culture, its alternative...
EVERY BUILDER KNOWS THE frustration of not being able to show prospective buyers every possible option. But what if you could? KB Home not only found a way to make it possible, but to do it in less than 600 square feet through the use of interactive kiosks.
AN AMENITY-RICH COMMUNITY is the norm for WCI Communities, but it was new to the New England market and to the target demographic when Traditions at Southbury was designed. The 154-home enclave in Southbury, Conn., is described as the “quintessential charming New England community” by Mitchell...
USUALLY, WHEN A DEVELOPER begins promoting a community that hasn't been built yet, “the normal response is to go take lifestyle photos somewhere else and claim they're not from somewhere else,” says Curt Smith, partner and COO of Scottsdale, Ariz.–based Sunbelt Holdings.
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IF THE ENTRIES IN THE 24TH ANNUAL COMPETITION of The Nationals are any indication, new-home sales and marketing efforts have never been more innovative, competitive, and exciting. Ten judges from various segments of the industry critiqued approximately 1,200 entries in 53 categories during a...
Bayport Alameda is the first project to be built on the 2,000-acre Alameda Naval Air Station, adjacent to Oakland, Calif.
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A TREND TOWARD RESTRICTING home buyers from renting out their property in the Phoenix market appears to have gained some traction with a favorable court ruling. On Jan. 3, a Maricopa County judge ruled that a rental restriction imposed on members of the Scottsdale Country Club Village Association...
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California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has pledged to “seek to reform onerous regulatory and planning laws to promote home building” in his proposed budget. The administration may propose changes to the 1970 California Environmental Quality Act, with the goal of reducing the costs, time, and...
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IN AN EFFORT TO MAKE LIFE EASIER FOR ITS dealers and customers, Knaack Manufacturing—a maker of jobsite storage and truck and van equipment—has launched a Web-based design tool called Vehicle Solutions for people outfitting their work vans with storage. “The tool allows users to create their own...
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Residents at a home for troubled teens recently received some tools from North Florida Builders, a Woodside company, to help them get back on track. The custom home builder in Jacksonville, Fla., donated two pairs of leather work gloves, a dictionary, and a thesaurus to every resident of Safe...
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A Chicago-area builder/architect recently donated $100,000 to his local Children's Memorial Hospital. The donation was made by Mike Klein, president and CEO of Lincolnwood, Ill.–based Airoom Architects and Builders. The funds will be used to purchase state-of-the-art equipment for the hospital's...
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IN AN ACTION DESCRIBED AS “EXTRAORDINARY” BY A spokesperson for HUD, the agency has frozen $48 million in grant funding to Houston's Department of Housing and Community Development. The city has failed to rectify long-term deficiencies in its HOME program, which provides housing assistance to...
DESPITE THE BEST EFFORTS OF WALL STREET, most American household wealth still lies in the appraised value of their homes. But a new report titled “A House of Cards” suggests that the bedrock of family wealth has begun to crumble.
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The World Trade Organization (WTO) set up a panel in January to decide whether the United States has complied with the WTO's efforts to have the United States reduce its tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber imports. The United States says it complied with the WTO's rulings because it trimmed its...
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Nathaniel Hager III, a professor at Elizabethtown College, in the city of the same name in Pennsylvania, has developed a sensor that can be embedded in concrete as it's being poured to test how quickly and efficiently the concrete cures. Hager and partner Roman Domszy say that the disposable sensor...
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A new study from the HBA of Maryland says that new houses generate far more tax revenue than the cost of the services they require. The trade group says the study proves that impact fees are unnecessary and that antigrowth advocates exaggerate the cost of new infrastructure. Local county officials...
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Two of the nation's largest public builders have grown through Southern acquisitions. NVR announced its purchase of Columbia, S.C.–based Rymarc Homes in January. The builder closed 231 homes in 2004.
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HUD just announced that it has raised the mortgage limits that can be insured by the FHA. Buyers in areas where homes are less expensive can borrow $172,632 (up from $160,176), while those in higher-priced areas can get insurance on $312,895 (up from $290,319). The increase should qualify more...
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A recent report by Standard and Poor's Ratings Services introduces a new tool for predicting where home prices are headed. In its report “Boom, Bubble, or Bust?” the rating agency uses its Housing Volatility Index to calculate the volatility of home prices in 331 metropolitan statistical areas and...
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The Supreme Court may help clarify what constitutes a public use under a municipal government's eminent domain powers.
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The 10 judges of The Nationals gave close scrutiny to the 36 Web site entries from communities and another 21 corporate sites from builders. We viewed the sites from the perspective of a prospective customer gaining a first impression and from the viewpoint of a builder wanting to connect with its...
The challenge of housing Las Vegas' new residents has introduced new terms to the area's vocabulary, including "live/work," "new urbanism," and, especially, "mixed-use."
PRESALES' GRAND OPENINGS CAN be very successful events for builders if they're managed properly. Engle Homes South Florida did so well with its blockbuster movie event theme in Legacy Cove in Stuart, Fla., that the company followed up with an equally successful sequel the following year.
YOU CAN'T ARGUE WITH THE NUMBERS. SINCE VERIDIAN Homes in Madison, Wis., opened its new design center in November 2003, the sale of upgrades has increased by 30 percent. Not only that, but the builder attributes 12.7 percent of all new traffic and nearly 10 percent of its closings to first contacts...
WAYNE HANCOCK NEVER intended to build the Luminarium at Estrella Mountain Ranch in Goodyear, Ariz. The ex-the country looking for a home-finding center he could copy but never found what he was looking for—a center that would tell the story of his community's lifestyle in a unique and engaging way.
THAT'S A TRAILER? YOU'D CERTAINLY never know it if Cynthia Monaco didn't admit it. Fortunately, she does, and with some sense of pride. Well, it's actually a trailer with a second-story deck added on. The sales center for Seahaus in La Jolla, Calif., was across the street from the ocean-front...
IN A CROWDED BUILDING MARKET, how do you make people remember your homes over the next guy's? For Denver-based Berkeley Homes, it all comes down to the “basketball room” in the Presidio plan, in the Reunion master planned community north of town. Tying into Reunion's spacious rec center, Berkeley...
IT WOULD BE AN UNDERSTATEMENT to say that Mark Bair and Harry Kerker had some obstacles to overcome when they were hired to create a marketing strategy for Playa Vista on the west side of Los Angeles. Once owned by Howard Hughes (he built and tested the Spruce Goose there), the 1,000-plus-acre...
SOME PROJECTS SELL THEMSELVES; others need a little help. Seabridge Villas was a bit of both. A condo conversion project located just a mile from the Pacific Ocean, its 344 units had a starting price under $200,000, considered very affordable in the white-hot Los Angeles real estate market.
Why It Worked: Mother Nature might just be the biggest factor in this project's success. One-third of the master planned community's 717 acres has been set aside for open space and habitat conservation. Sycamore Creek also backs up to the 460,000-acre Cleveland National Forest.
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The Directory of Accessible Building Products serves as an important tool for educating the home building industry, the aging network, and consumers about options that are available to keep people in their homes for as long as possible.
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- Members of the House introduce a bill to help alleviate the rising number of uninsured and the high cost of health care, according to the NAHB.
- New single-family home sales for 2004 top one million and set a new annual sales record for the fourth consecutive year.
- The NAHB developes...
Builder AV is an aggressive attempt to develop home builders as a channel for selling consumer electronics products.
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- Pivotal Corp. forms joint venture with New Home Technologies to market software products and services to home builders.
- HomeSphere's BuildSoft Enterprise rebranded as Builder 360.
- Bosch Digital Power Tools announces four-part Safe & Sound program.
Microsoft's new platform for home entertainment and home control, Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, could very well become a strong force in the home building industry.
KEEPING UP WITH WHAT BUYERS want is like trying to hit a moving target: You may score every now and then, but you'll probably miss more than you'll hit—unless you're really good, of course.
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LAST YEAR CONFIRMED THE CONDO craze. Existing condo and co-op sales set their ninth annual sales record, according to the National Association of Realtors. Condo price appreciation outpaced single-family homes, and the median price for an existing condo nationwide—$193,600—surpassed the...
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More residential builders, remodelers, homeowners, and subcontractors are using arbitration and alternative dispute resolution to resolve disagreements that used to end up in court.
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THE STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE in Pennsylvania last January filed the first criminal indictments against a home builder in the Poconos real estate fraud case.
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The real estate boom continues to have an impact on workers at the lowest end of the pay scale. According to the most recent data from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a person working full-time at a minimum-wage job can't afford to rent a two-bedroom home anywhere in the country. There...
WHEN TRANSIT PLANNERS DESIGNED Washington's subway system, called Metro, almost 40 years ago, they envisioned a system that would spur development around its stations. In many areas in Maryland and Northern Virginia, that's happened.
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HERE'S THE SCENARIO: YOU DESIGN A HANDFUL of houses to be built on an urban infill lot and you think the scale is appropriate for the other houses nearby. But are you really sure? This is the question a couple of professors are seeking to address.
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At a recent event marking the completion of the 2,000th manufactured home produced by Karsten Homes' Albuquerque plant, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson announced goals for affordable housing in the state. He plans to introduce legislation this year to build 15,000 affordable homes statewide before...
IN A STUNNING MOVE THAT SHOCKED AND SADDENED the housing world, Habitat for Humanity International founder Millard Fuller and his wife Linda were fired from the ministry they founded 28 years ago.