Earn National Recognition for Workforce Housing Projects
Builders, architects, designers, developers and land planners nationwide are invited to submit entries for the Innovation in Workforce Housing Awards.
This new award will recognize outstanding communities across the nation that provide decent and affordable homes for nurses, police officers, schoolteachers and other service personnel near areas in which they work.
Communities are eligible for the award if they were completed, the first model opened or the first unit was occupied, between Jan. 1, 2002 and Oct. 29, 2004. Winning entries will be selected by a panel of builders and multifamily and land development experts, based on criteria including exterior and interior design, sales success, construction quality/cost efficiency, successful management of any impediments and the level of cooperation among various stakeholders.
Award winners will be announced at the 2005 International Builders’ Show in Orlando, FL.
For more information, including eligibility requirements and an application form, visit www.nahb.org/workforcehousing. Entries must be postmarked no later than Oct. 29.
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Calls for Lifting Mexican Cement Tariffs Intensify as Florida Prepares to Rebuild
In the news media last week, there was a rising chorus of support for an NAHB proposal calling on U.S. Commerce Secretary Donald Evans to scrap tariffs on Mexican cement needed to fill shortages of the material that first appeared in Florida and the Southeast this spring and have since spread to more than half the states in the country.
There is no short-term relief to the problem in sight, analysts …
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Housing Snapshot
Mortgage interest rates continued to soften slightly last week as the financial markets attempted to make sense of recent statistics providing both good and bad news for the nation's economy. Oil prices, climbing close to $50 a barrel, provided cause for concern. Morgan Stanley economist Stephen Roach cautioned that the nation will lapse back into recession if oil prices remain at that level for the next three to six months, although nobody is predicting that they will. Also in the negative column, the Conference Board reported last week that its composite index of leading economic indicators was down 0.3% in July, following a 0.1% drop in June. Good news came from the Consumer Price Index, which was down in July, and the Federal Reserve's report of output from factories, mines and utilities, which was up. The best news of all came from housing starts, which were just under the 2 million annual level last month. Developments on the lumber price front last week continued in the negative direction for home builders, although the cost of framing lumber declined by $1 to $473 per 1,000 board feet, according to Random Lengths. The price of 15/32-inch 3-ply southern (west-east) exterior sheathing continued to rise, reaching $435 per 1,000 board feet, up $30 from the previous week. Oriented strand board rose $10, to $395. The price declines in those building staples of earlier this summer are becoming an increasingly distant memory.
| Mortgage Interest Rates |
| 30-Year Fixed-Rate |
5.81% |
| 15-Year Fixed-Rate |
5.19% |
| 1-Year ARM |
4.01% |
| Housing Starts - Jul. 2004* |
| Total |
1.978 million |
| Single-Family Starts |
1.651 million |
| Multifamily Starts |
327,000 |
New Home Sales
Jun. 2004* |
1.326 million |
Existing Home Sales
Jun. 2004* |
6.95 million |
| * Seasonally adjusted annual rate |
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