FEATURES

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    Perfect Fit

    Improper window installation is epidemic, say experts. The good news, though, is that the information to put windows in the right way exists. Here are the five most important steps for proper installation.

     
  • Joining Sam's Club

    Sometimes geography provides the best niche of all. For years, Lance Johnson had wanted to build single-family homes, and when he moved to Northwest Arkansas, he decided to do just that. It proved the perfect choice. “I had no concept of how much we were in the right place at the right time...

     
  • Building for All

    Some niches are so obvious, you practically stub your toe on them. As an active adult builder in Atlanta, Roy Wendt always attended seminars and conferences on serving his aging buyers. But it was a program on accessibility a few years ago that made him rethink traditional home plans. “The...

     
  • Beaching It

    Mark Martin has always worked in the unexpected slice of the market. Even as an employee in his father-in-law's design/build firm, he built contemporary homes—hardly the commonplace choice in colonial-heavy Northern Virginia. Now a builder in Kitty Hawk, N.C., Martin's Sandmark Construction and...

     
  • Updating the Past

    As a builder of historically accurate new homes, Mack Bissette has become accustomed to a certain amount of disbelief about his work. “No one believes it's a new home,” he says. “Everyone thinks it's the best renovation they've ever seen.” It's an understandable assumption, given where Bissette's...

     
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    Safe Havens

    Rod Cullum has moved in the opposite direction from his high-volume counterparts. At Cullum Homes, he builds truly high-end custom homes, spending two to three years constructing residences that sell for $2 million to $7 million.

     
  • FORCING THE ISSUE

    Builder Steve Perlman, like many home builders, likes density but hates excessive growth restrictions.

     
  • RETAIL REVERSAL?

    Rick Emsiek has a clever way to sidestep the density quagmire. He introduces residential density into commercial areas with flat growth.

     
  • TURNING TIDE?

    The Urban Land Institute (ULI) argues that an urban renaissance could be just around the corner. It points to several factors that are drawing people back to more urban living environments, including ...

     
  • DEFENDING “THE PROJECTS”

    “I've been convinced that there were a lot of good things tried in the 1960s, and unfortunately, the only failures still visible are the housing failures,” notes Cushing Dolbeare of Mitchellville, Md., a senior scholar at the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies. “People tend to spot...

     
  • The Truth About Density

    A body of new research shows that density impacts a region differently, based on other choices made by homeowners. It is neither a quick fix for sprawl, nor a Pandora's Box that will unleash drugs and crime on a neighborhood.

     
  • CLEANUP STATS

    The dismantling of the Orlando, Fla., Naval Training Center was one of the largest demolition projects in the country. A total of 4.5 million square feet was bulldozed, including 256 buildings, 200 miles of underground utilities, and 40 miles of asphalt roads. About 600,000 tons of clean concrete...

     
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    History Lessons

    Some of the country's premier builders have been tapped to put up houses at Baldwin Park, which is located less than three miles from the center of Orlando. At build-out, projected for 2008, it will have 1,200 detached homes, 2,400 attached units in townhomes and apartments (for sale and rental)...

     

EDITOR'S NOTE

  • Editor's Notes: Missed Opportunity

    Housing economists always seem to underestimate the strength of the market. One reason they tend to be so conservative is that there's more risk in not calling for a downturn than missing an upturn.

     

INSIDE STORY

  • Tank Defense

    The Uniform Plumbing Code (UPC) instructs that hot water heaters in garages need to be placed 18 inches off the floor. The idea: keep vehicles from crushing the tank, and keep potential ignition sources (both gas and electric) away from the floor, where flammable fumes from gasoline and other...

     
  • Arkell Case Reversed

    Violators of a public welfare statute can be subject to criminal charges, but most cases center around hazardous chemical spills or food and drug tampering.

     
  • Tough Tees

    Golf, formerly a must-have amenity in master planned communities, has landed in the rough.

     

TOP SHELF

GROUNDBREAKERS

  • Fast Moves

    PCA expects ICF systems to claim 8 percent of the residential market by 2006.

     
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    Cold Warrior

    In each township of New Jersey that Trinkle has built ICF homes, he has had to present the system to local building officials. He shows them specifications and code details, and he makes them feel comfortable about the material.

     

TURNAROUND

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    Renovating Renaissance

    Days after Tim Breedlove started his job in 1999 as Renaissance Homes' COO, his financial analysis uncovered serious cracks within the West Linn, Ore., home building company he'd just joined.

     

MARKET SMARTS

THE NUMBERS

  • Vital Signs: Second Chances

    For manufactured home customers and lenders, it was financially painful irony. While others purchased site-built homes for hundreds of thousands of dollars for no money down, those looking for a manufactured home with a 30-year mortgage had to produce a 10 percent down payment after Fannie Mae...

     

PRODUCTS

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    Trend Watch

    You may not always get to build in enviable locations, but one thing you do have control over is the cool products you offer your buyers.

     

NATIONAL BEAT

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    Electrochromic Windows Change Function of Windows

    In years to come, electrochromic (EC) windows, which control the amount of solar heat that passes through window glass, are likely to change the way consumers think about the function of windows.

     
  • Seiders Economy: Financial Fears

    Roughly one-fourth of the budget deterioration since 2000 reflects increases in federal spending on defense and homeland security, areas of the budget that promise to remain expansive regardless of the state of the economy or the party in power.

     
  • From the President: Lending Hands

    Sound land-use policies are equally important to the affordability equation. In many communities, the housing affordability problem is aggravated by a shortage of buildable land.

     
  • NAHB Briefs: March 2004

    - NAHB launches “Homes of Our Own” online coloring book bring the home building process to life for kids. - The federal government may not impose regulations over non-navigable waters. - The NAHB commends the Senate confirmation of Alicia R. Castaneda as a director of the Federal Housing Finance...

     

HOTSELLERS

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    Hot Sellers: California Dream

    Talk about timing--homes in Monterra at Rancho Etiwanda went on sale less than a month after the Interstate 210 extension opened, which means the commute to Los Angeles is much less rigorous.

     
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    Hot Sellers: All Ashore

    The New Jersey shore location and prices far below those in the northern counties of the state are a big draw for active adults.

     
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    Hot Sellers: Hudson River Views

    One-, two-, and three-bedroom, Nantucket-style units just a 47-minute express train ride from Manhattan.

     

WALKTHROUGH

  • Palmcroft-Encanto, Phoenix

    Looking for all the world like an oasis in downtown Phoenix, the Palmcroft-Encanto neighborhood is marked by curving, tree-lined streets, lush landscaping, and a 220-acre park with gently rolling green fields, dotted with picturesque ponds.

     

OTHER ARTICLES

  • Debutante Small-Scale Pendant

     
  • Rumbled Clay Pavers

     
  • Fusion-Welded Cellular Vinyl Window

     
  • Flexible knife blades

    Shatter-Resistant Blade for Utility Knives

     
  • Scale Tape Measure

     
  • Flexible Knife Blades

    Shatter-Resistant Blade for Utility Knives

     
  • No Magic Bullet

    Here are three companies that took different paths to creating an integrated system that manages the building life cycle.

     
  • Get Tech Ready!

    Technology consultants who talk only about the features and benefits of their products miss the point. Innovative technology is important, but a project can succeed only if the company is ready to make some changes. Here's how you can prepare for new technology.

     
  • Sales Aids

    Anticipating that the competition to close sales will increase as interest rates rise in 2004, GE Mortgage Insurance launched a Web site in January that lets builders offer buyers discounts on consumer items.

     
  • BUILDER Tech Briefs: March 2004

    - SpeakerCraft's Proficient Audio Systems now features two new programs. - M&S Systems markets intercom to residential builders. - Xplore Technologies Corp. releases affordable heavy-duty Tablet PC for builders.

     
  • A Big Help

    New construction-management software aims to deliver the features of an integrated back-office system to small builders.

     
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    Solar Giants?

    Pardee, like Beazer, Shea, and many other big builders, has recently given the residential PV industry an enormous boost. Each has begun to offer PV packages standard options in many of its communi ties. As a result, the solar people are over whelmed (not to mention overjoyed) with new residential...

     
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    Environmental Prodigy

    A Phoenix-based contractor has taken home an award for environmental leadership from Arizona's governor.

     
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    Back to School

    No one can say that Cornell University's master's degree in real estate doesn't provide real world experience. Among students' class projects: evaluating raw land and providing a full-blown feasibility report to big builder clients such as Pulte Homes, Toll Brothers, Lennar Corp., and Southern...

     
  • Go For Gold

    Entry deadline is April 9. The 41st Gold Nugget Awards competition will recognize design and planning excellence from 14 Western states and the Pacific Rim countries.

     
  • Steady Strength

    The National Association of Realtors (NAR) predicts that the median price for new homes will increase by 5.1 percent.

     
  • True Savings

    Billing software from TrueLine helps McMillin Cos. save the cost of 2.5 staffers.

     
  • Great Start

    Imagine you're a builder who wants to put up 4,300 homes on 638 acres in St. Charles, Mo. It's a billion-dollar, mixed-use project. Half the site will have to be raised out of a 500-year flood plain, and stormwater runoff will require that 75 acres of lakes be created. Over the course of two public...

     
  • No Dead Space?

    Residential growth around Chicago and many other places in the United States has squeezed older cemeteries to the point where there's no place left for the newly deceased.

     
  • Toilet Attacks?

    Toto, the company that makes most of these high-tech wonders, hopes to convince U.S. customers that American toilet hygiene is archaic.

     
  • Data Management

    New Web-based tool helps builders track and manage warranty information.

     
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    From the Ashes

    Hallmark had hoped to help the fire victims quickly and inexpensively by rebuilding entire neighborhoods, block by block, in Scripps Ranch and Harbison Canyon, using Hallmark's customary production systems. But the company soon realized that strategy would be impossible, thanks to the complexity...

     
  • Smart Start

    A new report from the Washington-based National Center for Housing and the Environment has concluded that engaging in land market monitoring gives communities a valuable tool that can make smart growth even smarter.

     
  • Defects Fight

    The Colorado Association of Home Builders is bracing for a fight over a constitutional amendment that will seek to overturn the state's construction defects law.

     
  • Magic Mortgages

    Washington Mutual has opened up a mortgage center in Harlem, N.Y., as part of a five-year partnership with the Johnson Development Center, a company run by former basketball star Magic Johnson. Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, are targeted as future sites for the home loan centers.

     
  • Modified Dream

    The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) claims that the Bush administration's actions on housing policy don't match its rhetoric.

     
  • Framed!

    Pulte is partnering with a top Southwest framing and foundation company in a quest for quicker cycle times and lower costs.