Congress Passes Builder-Friendly Bill, but Will It Be Signed Into Law?
The 21st Century Road to Housing Act passed both the House and the Senate last week and is headed to the president to be signed into law.
Berkshire Hathaway Doubles Down on its Home Business
Its acquisition of Taylor Morrison Home shows it believes the housing market will come back. It’s just not saying when. Under legendary leader Warren Buffett Berkshire Hathaway invested modestly in the home and home furnishings industry so industry observers wondered if his successor Greg Abel would continue along the same path. Last month he did. […]
Lowe’s Expands $250 Million Investment in Tradespeople Training
The goal for the program is to train 250,000 people to work in the building trade by the year 2035. Working through its foundation, the new Lowe’s initiative is building on earlier efforts by the giant retailer to train 50,000 people. The initial investment was for $50 million in 2023 and so far, it has […]
New York City Gets Its First Completed Mass Timber Structure
Much of the rest of the country has been into mass timber for years but now the nation’s largest city is in the game too. It took the 2022 New York City Building Code to formally recognize CLT (cross-laminated timber) as a permitted building material but now a five-story apartment building in the Clinton Hill […]
A Medieval Carpentry Technique Helped Rebuild Notre-Dame
The reconstruction of the legendary cathedral in Paris used “scribing,” a technique employed in its original construction. When French officials made the decision five years ago to rebuild Notre-Dame Cathedral as close as possible to its original design following a massive and devastating fire in April of 2019, it meant using a carpentry technique that […]
It’s Taking Longer to Build a Single-Family Home
New numbers from the Census Bureau indicate that the average single-family home takes half a month longer to build than it used to. If it sometimes seems like everything takes a little longer to finish these days, you might be right when it comes to building a single-family home. A new National Association of Home […]
The Mass Timber Business Is Booming but Geography Is a Factor
Around the world, the use of mass timber for new construction has skyrocketed but in some parts of the world builders need to be careful. New mass timber buildings, some as high as 30 stories, are turning up in the U.S., Europe and Asia but a new report suggests that certain climates are less hospitable […]
Lumber Prices Don’t Get Usual Spring Boost
As the building and construction sectors continue to struggle, reduced demand for lumber is depressing prices this year. In the spring a builder’s thoughts always turn to buying wood. But not so much this year. With both residential and commercial building not getting its usual bump in the spring season, lumber prices are at levels […]
New York City New Building Filings Hit Record High
New York City is sometimes an outlier to the rest of the nation but a record number of new building filings is good news for the whole country. New construction permits for New York City for the fourth quarter of 2023 represented the highest quarterly tally for the 2020s decade so far, according to just-released […]
Rates Remain the Big Question for the New Year
No single factor weighs heavier on the building and construction industry for 2024 than interest rates and how they impact the cost of mortgages. This past year may not have been the worst of times for the building trade but it was far from the best. New housing and commercial building construction was severely impacted […]