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Builders in the Sacramento, Calif., region are responding to the softer housing market by offering buyers enticing incentives to close deals, a move that industry analysts say could spread to other locations across the country.
Urban sprawl costs Americans $34 million a day, according to a new book that reports on a 10-year study into the economic costs of spreading out.
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So much for HUD's federal affordability standard, which estimates that housing costs should eat up no more than 30 percent of household income.
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Iraqi television station Al-Sharqiya has a hit on its hands with Labor and Materials, its version of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.
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Associated Builders And Contractors (ABC) and the military placement agency Orion International recently launched a new interactive site that links military veterans with available positions in the construction trades.
Public art makes the landscape more pleasing to the eye, but it can also make a telling statement about the shared values of a neighborhood and its residents.
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Three dozen wounded Marines got to spend the holidays with their families, thanks to an $18,000 donation from the employees of Carlsbad, Calif.–based Barratt American.
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After Avatar Properties dismantled the 13 homes in its original model home park in the active adult community Solivita in Poinciana, Fla., it opted to donate all of the materials to Habitat for Humanity's Home Store in Orlando, Fla.
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When is a zoning change discriminatory? The city of Kyle, Tex., 20 miles south of Austin, is about to find out.
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New Mexico's electronic permitting system has sped up the construction process for thousands of contractors across the state, a success the National Association of State Contractors Licensing Agencies recently recognized by awarding the state's Construction Industries Division its first Innovation...
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American Woodmark Corp. has announced it will cut staff and raise prices on some products to combat continued weak financial performance.
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ICI Paints (brand name: Glidden) and its CEO, Larry Porcellato, received an “enlightened product” commendation from the New York Chapter of the International Furnishings and Design Association.
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Home builders in the Charlotte, N.C., area maintain that a neighborhood design program in Monroe, N.C., that has specific parameters for builders drives up the cost of new housing.
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Florida started a $6 million program, Florida reBuilds, to train construction workers after a state-wide survey revealed nearly 14,000 job vacancies in the industry.
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HUD announced in December that it will pay the mortgages of some of the Gulf Coast hurricanes' victims for up to 12 months, as those homeowners return to repair their homes and find jobs.
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Looking for land? Six thousand pairs of eyes are better than a dozen.
The global marketing information services firm J.D. Power and Associates is widely known for its analyses and rankings of automobiles and home builders, but now the Westlake Village, Calif.–based company has turned its sights on major appliances.
“I definitely found the teaching of future contractors, and the passing on of my military knowledge to future military leaders, personally rewarding,” McWilliams says. “Had it not been for the Seabees, who extended my basic vocational school training in carpentry into many general areas, and the...
A few years ago, it was just about a given that Nextel had the home builder communications market locked up. The company was such a profound force in the industry that every year at the International Builders' Show, attendees would complain that they couldn't get their calls through because so many...
In 2004, Canadian companies earned about $5.7 billion (U.S.) selling softwood into the United States. American consumers of framing lumber and wood siding spent about $7 billion to purchase that same lumber. The difference, approximately $1.3 billion, went into the pockets of the U.S. Customs...
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A round up of the Hearthstone judges and criteria
Production builder Pardee Homes sometimes takes 25 or more years to build out a community. So it's been important since the early days for the Los Angeles–based company to participate in, and give back to, the areas where it builds, say president and CEO Michael McGee and executive vice president...
Through three decades in business, J. Ronald Terwilliger has had opportunities to donate to myriad causes, and he didn't narrow his giving much at the beginning. But his work in the housing industry—he's chairman and CEO of multifamily builder Trammel Crow Residential—has taught him much about the...
When David and Martha Showers' first grandchild, Jeremy, was born in Ohio 17 years ago with serious health problems, he was transferred immediately to Akron Children's Hospital. “We credit Akron Children's Hospital with saving his life,” David Showers says. “We woke up to the fact that this...
Ralph Drees admits that the arts aren't his first love. But that hasn't stopped him from donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to museums in Northern Kentucky over the years or from encouraging others to do the same. “I'm not really into arts personally, but I think it's good for the area,”...
Some people make it a point to avoid their high school reunions, but not this year's winners. Amid countless other charitable and business obligations, both Ralph Drees and David Showers remain involved with their hometown alma maters, leading capital campaigns, overseeing reconstruction projects...
Let's just say there were a few codes and ordinances weighing in on the design of the Aptekar House, an oceanfront prize in tony Stinson Beach, Calif. FEMA requirements set the floor at 19 feet above sea level to safeguard against storm surges, and a height limit prescribed by the local design...
The moss-draped live oaks had pride of place long before the master planned community of Oldfield took root in Okatie, S.C. So when architect Gerry Cowart was asked to design a family retreat in their midst, the trees were the first stakeholders he consulted.
The Rivera Stone House represents not the culmination of a dream, but the midpoint. Marking the second phase of a private master plan on 65 acres of wine country property, it's a temporary hold-over for the owners until their primary residence is built. Eventually it will serve as a guesthouse.
Super-sized chalets with exposed trusses and burly log timbering are plentiful in the mountains—the thinking being that the best complement to big country is a strapping lumberjack of a house. But this all-weather abode on the former Cataract Creek Ranch takes an opposite tack. It uses a more...
It's one thing to take an off-the-shelf floor plan and plug it into “Anywhere, U.S.A.” It's quite another to walk a parcel of land, take in the topography, vegetation, wildlife, and weather and then craft a unique dwelling for a singular spot.