As many heating costs rise, heating a home is becoming increasingly expensive for your buyers. Good insulation and an efficient furnace or heat pump can help, but you can also give your buyers an energy-efficient supplemental heat source that will not break the bank: a pellet stove or insert. Read more
AS THE HOUSING INDUSTRY REELED THIS summer, several retirement and active adult communities seemed to flourish. Pulte Homes' Sun City neighborhood in Carolina Lakes, N.C., for one, closed more than 600 homes during the 12 months ended June 30, according to the Charlotte Observer. And two of Shea Homes' Trilogy active adult subdivisions near Phoenix enjoyed a 210 percent increase in sales during May and June, compared to the same months a year earlier, reported local radio station KTAR-FM and confirmed by the builder. Read more
IT HAS GOTTEN A LITTLE EASIER FOR DEVELOPERS and builders to borrow money for green building projects thanks to a recent launch by Second Angel Bancorp (SAB) of a lending program aimed at such projects. Read more
SO, WHAT'S YOUR WALK SCORE? It's a question that home buyers could start asking, thanks to a new application on the popular Google Maps Web site. The score measures the walkability of an address on a scale of one to 100, with 100 being a perfect score. A high score means it's close enough to walk to a host of necessary and desirable services. The farther residents have to drive to school or to pick up a gallon of milk, the lower the score will be. Read more
THE AVERAGE AMERICAN FAMILY devotes more than half of its income (52 percent) to housing and transportation combined, according to a study put out by the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership and the Center for Neighborhood Technology, two nonprofit research groups that crunch Bureau of Labor Statistics data. But the proportion a family allocates to one versus the other varies by market, and research suggests that the amount a family spends on transportation may be in many cases inversely proportional to what it spends on housing. Read more
- Owner of Hall Financial Services, a Matthews, N.C.–based mortgage broker, is being forced to sell his own home to help reimburse clients as part of a legal settlement. - A recent report by four nonprofit advocacy groups finds that roughly one-third of California's cities and counties now have inclusionary housing programs. - Clise Properties is selling a 13-acre tract in downtown Seattle, according to a report in The New York Times. Read more
The NAHB, along with a coalition of building-oriented trade groups, has serious questions about the energy-saving goals and administrative provisions included in the House version of energy legislation passed last August. Read more