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TOWNHOUSES ARE A TIMELESS alternative to the single-family detached suburban home. Standing shoulder to shoulder with other buildings, they come with little maintenance, no persnickety co-op boards, and often with gardens or courtyards. Best of all, there's nobody above or below.
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December 2005 building trends.
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TELECOMS AND CABLE companies will spend much of 2006 trying to convince builders and developers that they can deliver voice, data, video, and even wireless service in bundled packages that make moving into a new home easier and life better for home buyers.
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THE CURRENT TOOL for water heating is a large, space-hogging tank that is good at producing hot H2O but has a tendency to run out when you need it most. Until a depleted hot water tank is given time to heat more water, it is largely useless. But there is hope for the future: on-demand tankless...
IS IT TIME TO BID farewell to dramatic two-story foyers and cavernous great rooms? Some architects and builders say yes, arguing that yesterday's ostentation is giving way to a more casual and intimate kind of luxury. “Most of the projects we've done lately have involved scaling back overblown...
PETE HARRIS OF Harris Homes may be a lone wolf in Nashville, Tenn., an area not known for technology innovators, but more home builders may be on the same sheet of music as the year moves on.
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SALES CENTERS AND model home complexes will increasingly become places where prospective homeowners will go for decorating tips, an easy but elegant gourmet recipe, or instructions on how to plant a container garden. They saw it on HGTV or the DIY channel last week; now they want to see how it...
ACCORDING TO ADVANCED Energy, a nonprofit corporation based in Raleigh, N.C., about 20 percent of a house's heating and cooling costs are caused by heat gained or lost through the windows. A leaky window that lets in cold air during winter and warm air during summer is one of the biggest sources of...
TWO YEARS AGO, Tuscan- and Mediterranean-influenced villas were all the rage. Those styles are still going strong in the warm climates of California and Florida, but the rest of the nation is embracing an architectural renaissance of a different flavor. Craftsman style is back in full force, and...
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BUILDERS SAY THEY'LL build on smaller lots to keep prices down. But there's more to it: They have to build on smaller lots. In many areas, they cannot get the acres they need to build on traditional lots.
NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN home automation will drive costs down from in excess of $50,000 to about $10,000 for an average 2,000- square-foot house in the year ahead. Here are a few companies with systems that come in at right around that amount ...
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NEWSPAPER READERSHIP is going down, but have papers lowered their advertising rates? That by itself should make marketing executives think about how to allocate their marketing budgets.
BUILDERS ARE GOING urban in their search for dirt. Many of the national builders have set up urban or infill divisions, looking for what Randy Jackson, president of The Planning Center, a community planning and design consulting firm, calls “underutilized land.”
ONE OF HUMANKIND'S greatest accomplishments —after the splitfinger fastball and the NCAA's March Madness, of course—is the ability to control our indoor climate. Appropriately enough, air conditioning a house is also the costliest part of operating it, which is why there is always an ongoing effort...
NO ONE SEEMS TO MIND starter castles that keep to themselves in designated enclaves. It's when they pop up in old neighborhoods and start bullying the smaller kids on the block that problems arise.
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Article for Builder's Choice Award 2006
IT'S NOT EASY TO CREATE AN ENTICING entry-level townhome in the Bay area these days. A successful undertaking requires the right blend of budget-consciousness and cachet to appeal to the city's young sophisticates. This sold-out, 92-townhouse project, which finishes up this month, has a lot of...
VISITORS STROLLING THE SERPENTINE walkways, abrupt angles, and intimate alleys of Philadelphia's Society Hill might think that the town-houses at Liberty Court are just another example of the area's meticulously restored homes.
FOR YEARS NOW, INDUSTRIAL loft housing has been on the cutting edge of design for hip urban dwellers. For many, an airy loft is a sweet antidote to the stacked rectangles of condos or the predictability of bland suburban interiors. But when faced with a unique parcel of land within walking distance...
THE 2004 HURRICANE season blew the cover off a weakness in the way stucco is usually installed, with a number of Central Florida homes springing leaks despite having suffered no wind damage.
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IT MIGHT HURT A LOT of builders' feelings, but sometimes the houses and the great locations and the upgrades kind of run together, says Jimmy Dunnett, Atlanta district sales manager for Duluth, Ga.–based Bowen Family Homes. A builder will stand out by creating a superior experience, and that means...
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INFILL IN SOME AREAS is being driven by the availability of project financing. Investors have flocked to such groups as CityView and Phoenix Realty Group, which are geared toward providing financing for urban workforce housing. Their investment strategies have proved to be so successful that...
THE STORY IS BY NOW familiar: Heat harnessed from the sun would provide nontoxic fuel and become an inexhaustible source of power that would reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, in general, and on foreign oil, in particular.
AS LAND THAT CAN be developed gets more and more scarce, close-knit communities are gaining cachet. Concerns over skyrocketing gas prices and Americans' expanding waistlines are but two of many factors fueling a renewed interest in pedestrian zones near public transit, whether they're new urbanist...
IF YOU WALKED THE FLOOR OF LAST SEPTEMBER'S CEDIA show, everywhere you turned there was a vendor talking about an iPod feature.
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HERE ARE SOME WORDS to catch the attention of prospective buyers in 2006: commute, transportation, close to shopping. Richard Gollis, principal of San Francisco–based real estate consultants The Concord Group, says that the amount of time individuals spend commuting has become so onerous, it's...
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IF YOU'RE LIKE THE REST OF US, this is the time of year when you look back and take stock of what went right and what went wrong over the last 12 months. Looking back is a good way to learn from mistakes, but getting a glimpse of what could be coming is an even better way to be prepared for the...
GRASSROOTS BUILDERS HAVE SPOKEN, AND THE International Code Council (ICC) listened. Thanks to a major lobbying campaign that involved thousands of our members contacting their local code officials in response to a call to action by the NAHB (see
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- The new Theater-Point speakers allow users to optimize the home theater.
- Control 4's new 4Sight service to offer online control of the home.
AS 2005 RECEDES, EXCITEMENT IS brewing among consumer electronics companies that 2006 could be the year vendors finally start making some headway with production home builders.
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THE QUESTION THAT WILL BE FACING attendees at the International Builders' Show in Orlando, Fla., next month is a simple one: How do you find time to attend seminars and visit the more than 1,600 exhibitors that will be displaying their wares in a show that feels as big as Rhode Island?
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IT'S BEEN POSSIBLE OVER THE LAST SEVERAL months to pick up one newspaper and learn that the housing market's boom continues, only to read a headline somewhere else declaring proof of a bursting bubble.
HOW DO AMERICAN FAMILIES REALLY live in their houses? That was the question our Reality House 2006 endeavors to answer.
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AS FANS OF IKEA HOME FURNISHINGS stores know, the store highlights its products in creative vignettes cram-packed with design and style ideas. The New Jersey–Pennsylvania division of Beazer Homes USA has adopted a similar approach at its new design studio in Ewing, N.J., which opened in June.
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GET READY FOR A SPIKE IN HOUSING DEMAND from foreign-born residents by the end of the decade. According to a new study from the Pew Hispanic Center, immigration peaked in 1999 and 2000. But immigrants tend to hit their peaks in home buying about 10 years after moving to the United States.
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The HBA of Central Arizona successfully defeated measures in the Phoenix-area towns of Goodyear and Avondale that would have required fire sprinklers in all new houses. The builders were concerned that mandating sprinklers would add about $1 per square foot to the cost of a new home, pricing some...
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HIGHLAND PARK, ILL., A HIGH-PRICED SUBURB north of Chicago, has found a way to deliver housing to some of its service workers and moderate-income residents.
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CORKY MCMILLIN, A LEADING figure in Southern California's home building, development, and business circles for more than four decades, died Sept. 22 in San Diego at the age of 76. The cause of death was heart failure.
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With all the discussion about housing costs spiraling out of control, there are still undervalued housing markets out there. According to a report from National City Corp., one of the nation's largest financial holding companies, four out of the five most undervalued markets are in Texas. College...
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Toll Brothers' vice chairman Bruce Toll will pay $25.2 million to acquire a 2.5-acre lot in Atlantic City, N.J., that was the site of Donald Trump's World Fair boardwalk casino hotel. Toll intends to build a luxury residential high-rise that would include retail space. Toll outbid Trump, who tried...
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Two fast-growing companies positioned themselves to grow even larger through recently announced deals. In California, Victorville-based Frontier Homes, an entry-level and move-up builder headed by James Previti Jr., took over management of high-end builder Prestige Homes, founded by Previti's...
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The mortgage interest deduction
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For the first time, more than 1 million owner-occupied homes are worth more than $1 million, according to the results of the 2004 American Community Survey, conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. But there are plenty of nonmillionaires, too: The median value of all homes included in the survey was...
WASHINGTON IS KNOWN MORE FOR FILIBUSTERS than for innovative design. For one rain-soaked week in October, however, innovation was the word when 18 university teams converged on the city for the Solar Decathlon, an event in which students compete to see who can design, build, and operate the...
THE MORE THAN 1,000 ACRES THAT JACK MYERS AMASSED just outside of Charlotte did pretty well for him as a cotton farm, but Myers considered that a temporary use until he could develop the property into something even more profitable: a suburb. Placing his trust and his land (not to mention his...
WHEN TEMPERATURES dip toward freezing, building officials routinely shut down foundation work
DURING A SPEECH TO THE Credit Union National Association in February 2004, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan proclaimed the virtues of adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs).
RANI HONG WAS A HOMELESS 8-year-old girl in India when an American family named Clark adopted her in 1979. One year later, Rani's future husband, Trong Hong, arrived in the United States from Vietnam when he was 9 years old under virtually the same circumstances.
AS IT BURST ON SHORE OVER the beaches and bayous of the Mississippi Delta region, Hurricane Katrina destroyed the homes and businesses of home builders, their subcontractors, and their employees, just as it wreaked havoc in every other part of the Gulf Coast community.
BUILDERS IN THE PHOENIX AREA HAVE AN enviable problem: Business is just too good.
SUNRIVER ST. GEORGE, A SOUTHERN Utah retirement community, now offers a home automation system that lets homeowners manage everyday tasks such as HVAC, lighting, and security over the same touchscreen panel or Web tablet that controls their cable television, home videos, and audio system.
THE BAD NEWS ANNOUNCED EARLIER this year is that we may be facing serious hurricane activity for the next 15 to 20 years. This means a vicious cycle of destruction and cleanup for those along the coasts, but it also means harsher weather for inland dwellers as well.
MARKET RESEARCHER BARB NAGLE doesn't consider herself a particularly fastidious person, but even she was surprised by what she encountered when she knocked on the doors of people who had recently bought new homes.
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This month's top shelf products include a cabinet and beer dispenser from Perlick Corp., a polyurethane-based construction adhesive from Liquid Nails, and weatherresist flashing tape from Owens Corning.
U.S.-CANADIAN RELATIONS TOOK A turn for the worse in August: The two nations' dispute over softwood lumber trade took center stage in Canada's political drama, and the long-simmering disagreement flared up into a hot diplomatic spat.
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Massachusetts' housing production level ranks among the lowest in the nation, and what's built is among the most expensive. Too few homes is “the biggest single culprit” in the state's lack of affordable housing, according to Clark Ziegler, executive director of the Massachusetts Housing...
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DAVID WEEKLEY HOMES RECENTLY PRESENTED its first “Partners of Choice” awards to 11 national account suppliers that their toughest critics—the builder's own rank and file—singled out for their consistent performances.
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California building industry leaders report that the $500,000-plus median cost of a new home prices about 81 percent of Californians out of the housing market. Builders are asking for tax relief on government fees that on average add $20,000 to the price of a new home. In some communities in the...
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The Home Depot said in September it will implement energy-saving measures in all of its U.S. stores in light of the government's call to conserve energy after Hurricane Katrina. Measures include reducing the use of ceiling lights in stores equipped with skylights and cutting back illumination of...
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BUYING A NEW HOME MAY BE the American dream, but most first-timers are unaware that it can be a nightmare. Even for experienced buyers, a new home's avalanche of decisions can be daunting.
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YEARS AGO, MINORITIES OFTEN WERE TURNED down when they applied for mortgages. Now, they're likely to be approved, but at a higher interest rate than whites.
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Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are giving a much-needed break to the thousands of homeowners left homeless by Hurricane Katrina, allowing loan servicers to temporarily suspend payment collections from affected homeowners. Freddie Mac told servicers to stop collection of mortgage payments for September...
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IF THE QUINCY, MASS.–BASED National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has its way, newly constructed one- and two-family residential dwellings will be required to have fire sprinklers.
ANYONE WITH AN ANSWER TO TODAY'S UBIQUITOUS questions—Is there a housing bubble, and where will it pop first?—is in high demand. Housing analysts, industry think tanks, mortgage companies, and even the government have presented their best guesses in recent reports.
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Even before hurricanes Katrina and Rita, home builders in the Tampa, Fla., area included so-called “escalator” clauses into sales contracts. The clauses let builders offset the rising costs of lumber, concrete, and roof shingles. While buyers are torn because it's never clear how much the price...
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Led by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, a coalition of state officials has filed suit against the U.S. Energy Department, accusing the agency of failing to set efficiency standards for household appliances. The states say the DOE is six to 13 years behind schedule and has not adopted any...
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Analysts predict rebuilding the Gulf Coast region after Hurricane Katrina will push cement consumption even higher then current record levels, the Skokie, Ill.–based Portland Cement Association says. Experts estimate that rebuilding New Orleans will require at least 4 million tons of cement over...
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Walk-in closets, pantries, and garages are taking up ever-bigger chunks of space in modern floor plans, so an expected upswing in the home organization products market is no surprise. A recent study by The Freedonia Group, a Cleveland-based industrial market research firm, anticipates that makers...
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Using a formula that weighs wage costs, taxes, electricity costs, and costs of real estate for industrial and office space, the Milken Institute recently declared Hawaii, New York, and Massachusetts the most expensive states in which to do business. Its annual Cost of Doing Business Index found...
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Centex Corp. disclosed in September that it will sell Fairclough Homes, its United Kingdom home building operation, to The Miller Group, the UK's largest privately owned residential building and development company. After foreign and domestic taxes, net proceeds of the sale are expected to be about...
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SullivanKreiss, an executive search firm based in Northborough, Mass., is offering free career placement help to architects, engineers, and construction professionals displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Call 508-393-4933 or e-mail info@sullivankreiss.com for more information.
HOME BUILDERS WORKING ON TEARDOWNS IN historic Myers Park in Charlotte, N.C., had a tough fight on their hands earlier this year when a neighborhood group brought up an arcane open-space rule that threatened to derail the lucrative teardown business for local custom home builders.
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THE PAST FEW YEARS HAVEN'T BEEN kind to manufactured and modular home builders. But in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, they're in high demand.