Builder Magazine

Rightsize Your Business

Stanley Martin Communities began preparing for what it saw as the inevitable housing downturn in a 1998 planning retreat. Nine years later, with its strategy accomplished, the company is standing strong, despite having to lay off a number of employees.
A Tale of Two Master Plans

The home building industry is in for a long, grueling winter, but there are signs of spring on the horizon. At opposite ends of the country, two new urbanist neighborhoods are sprouting up on sites that were more than ready for a little rejuvenation. Thanks to smart planning and a cooperative...
Bright Ideas

Homebuilding companies all over the country include the word innovation in their their company's name or in a company slogan describing the work they do. In fact, innovation, or some derivation of it, might be the most popular word that home builders use to describe themselves. Embracing and...

Reality Check

It's been a long, hard year. many of us will not be sorry to turn over that last calendar page of 2007, in hopes that 2008 will offer better days. Unfortunately, we can't know what will happen this coming year any more than we knew how the current one would unfold. With the benefit of hindsight, we...

Legal Fight Falls Short

Builders were dealt a blow in October when the U.S. Supreme Court opted not to hear a case in which Medford, N.J.–based builder MiPro Homes claimed the township of Mt. Laurel, N.J., unlawfully seized a 16-acre parcel that was under site development and had been legally zoned and approved for...

In-Town Advantage

When Michael Ray and Jay MacDowell, partners in Atlanta-based The Housing Group, built their first neighborhood in East Atlanta in 1999, they were banking on a vision of what the in-town community could be. They envisioned a vibrant village with funky boutiques and a hopping nightlife in place of...

Top Shelf: December 2007

This month's top shelf products include the Ratcheting Hex Key Wrench, Cartglass Classic Series of mosaic tiles, Kwik Seal 3.0 kitchen and bath adhesive caulk.

Beauty and the Beast

While brazilian bombshell Gisele Bündchen may not be an economist, her statement about the economic turmoil in the United States may strike a chord that no market report could. Bündchen, famous for her Victoria's Secret posing, let it be known in November that she would prefer to be paid in euros...

Products: Smooth Surfaces / Glaze of Glory

Fifteen years ago, before the sustainable building groundswell began in earnest, environmentally friendly products had an organic (some might say earthy) look that only the sandal-wearing hippie fringe could appreciate. If you were looking for a refined finish, you looked elsewhere.

Quick Help

Intuit never stops improving Quickbooks. The software maker is offering a laundry list of helpful features in QuickBooks Premier Contractor Edition 2008 that should help builders manage more efficiently during these difficult times.

Meeting our Challenges

Confronting one of the greatest challenges our industry has seen in decades, at its Fall Board Meeting in Seattle the NAHB directors resolved to pursue a prompt response on several fronts to limit the damage of the mortgage credit crunch and restore confidence in the housing market.

Brookville, Pa.

Brookville's ascension from a humble 18th-century settlement to a booming 19th-century town is representative of the changing face of the nation in the early 1800s. Nestled in the heavily wooded terrain of western Pennsylvania, the Brookville settlement remained in relative isolation for the better...

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