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 […]

Goldman Sachs Forecasts High Home Prices & Mortgages for 2024

Despite some signs that interest rates may be leveling off and housing activity showing signs of life, the big investment banker says next year will still be a hard one for the building trade. There are some indications from the Federal Reserve that interest rates may be topping out while small pockets of the new […]

Construction Spending Ticks Up in May, Continuing Uneven Path

The building industry has been on a roller coaster ride the past year and that continued in May – in a good way – when spending in the U.S. beat expectations. Construction spending is still in recovery mode and is unlikely to hit the highs of the early years of the pandemic when the country […]