California will become the first state to require all new homes to have solar power. The new requirement, which was approved by a five-member California Energy Commission on Wednesday, will take effect in two years.“You can bet every state will be watching to see what happens,” Bob Raymer, senior engineer for the California Building Industry Association, said in the public comments prior to Wednesday’s vote.New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Wa
Lennar, the nation’s largest homebuilder, announced a deal with Amazon that will make voice-activated digital assistants a standard feature in its new homes, as well as other smart devices. The new homes will include built-in Wi-Fi, smart locks, doorbells, thermostats, and lights that can be controlled by Amazon’s voice-activated digital assistant, Alexa.“This will be the hallmark of why we buy a new home,” says David Kaiserman, president
Remodelers report that growing labor shortages are delaying projects and increasing the amount they have to charge homeowners, according to the National Association of Home Builder’s Remodeling Market Index survey for the third quarter of 2017. Those needing a carpenter may find the most trouble; 91 percent of remodelers reported shortages of labor in carpentry work.More than half of remodelers surveyed reported shortages in 12 of the 15 remode
California is on the brink of making solar standard on every new home built in the state. The California Energy Commission is set to vote on Wednesday on new energy standards that would require most new homes to have solar panels installed starting in 2020.If approved, solar installations will skyrocket in the state. Currently, just 15 to 20 percent of new single-family homes have solar facilities, Bob Raymer, technical director for the Californi
Builders saw more sales of newly built single-family homes last month, as the spring selling season got underway. New-home sales posted a 4 percent increase in March month over month, the U.S. Commerce Department reported Tuesday. New single-family homes reached a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 694,000 units in March, the second highest reading since the Great Recession. The West and South regions of the U.S. led to most of that uptick.“We
The new-home market is unable to meet growing buyer demand because there aren’t enough workers to build homes, builders say.At the beginning of the year, there were 250,000 unfilled construction jobs, including those for home framers, electricians, masons, carpenters, and other duties needed to build a new home. The unemployment rate in the building industry is significantly higher than the national unemployment rate—7.4 percent versus 4.1 p
Single-family housing starts underperformed in March, the U.S. Commerce Department reported Tuesday. Construction on new single-family homes dropped 3.7 percent to 867,000 units. Builders blamed bad weather in many regions of the country.“The modest decline in single-family starts in March is still in line with our solid builder confidence readings and is largely attributable to lingering winter weather that is causing production delays in cert
Housing construction has not kept pace with population growth in the U.S. for more than a decade, and in order to stymie shortages across the nation, builders will need to construct 7.3 million more homes, according to a new report. The Up for Growth National Coalition, a group of real estate developers, owners, and builders of affordable housing, finds that since 2000, builders in about 22 states and the District of Columbia have not constructed
Owners love their homes so much that they are commissioning high-priced miniature versions of them to display. How high-priced? Sometimes they pay thousands for these replicas, Bloomberg reports.The miniature homes are small enough to fit on a tabletop and are known for their attention to detail reproducing the home’s architectural features.Lisa Macpherson, a veteran marketing exec, recalls two years ago giving her boyfriend a miniature versio
Sales of new single-family homes dropped for the third consecutive month in February, mostly due to plunges in sales in the Midwest and West, the Commerce Department reported last week. Both regions are seeing a rapid price growth and shortage of homes for sale.The nationwide drop was modest, at 0.6 percent month over month on a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 618,000 units. But new-home sales saw a 17.6 percent drop in the West and 3.7 percen
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