Owners Hold Off on Sales of Homes
Housing prices have increased so rapidly in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area that home owners are hesitant to put their homes on the market because they are not sure they will be able to find a move-up house they can afford. “A neighbor told me recently that he’s looking to sell in the $600s, and we only bought in the $200s range four years ago,” said Dan Kelly, a Silver Spring, Md., resident. “But I’ve been looking at more expensive neighborhoods where I thought I’d be able to move and there’s nothing there.” Denise Chapman, an agent for Long & Foster, said that half the sellers out there are afraid to sell, which is making the area’s tight housing supply even tighter. The National Association of Realtors® reported that the U.S. inventory of homes available for resale in March fell to a near-record low of 2.33 million, about a four-month supply. Historically, a six-month supply has been needed to keep sellers and buyers in equilibrium. There was only a 1.12-month supply of single-family homes for sale in the District in March, the third lowest in 14 months, and only a 0.88-month inventory of condominiums and co-ops. Homes can sell within a week, but the sellers then have to go out and win a bidding war to find another place to live. (www.washingtonpost.com)
Washington Post (5/2/05); Sandra Fleishman
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Cement Shortage Hits Local Builders
Bob Egbert, CEO of American Concrete Supply in Utah, said that the volume of cement his company is able to obtain from its Salt Lake City supplier has been cut by 20%, and other ready-mix plants in his area are closed on Fridays because of the limited supply. In turn, his company has reduced the amount of concrete it sells to swimming pool contractors, which are heavy users of the material, and now has to allocate deliveries to its customers. A spokesman for Ence Homes, the largest home builder in the southern part of the state, reports that workers have had to cut back slightly on development because they cannot pour concrete on Saturdays. While larger builders and subcontractors are in the best position to obtain concrete, even they have to plan ahead and be very careful the job is done right in the first place to get the most out of each pour. Over the past two years, the price Egbert pays for cement has increased 20%-25%, and prices are slated to rise again in August, he said. Egbert also said that he expects the shortages to persist through 2008. Garret Bangerter, president of the Southern Utah Home Builders Association, said that the concrete shortage may delay the time it takes to build a typical house by about a week, but if contractors plan ahead, the impact should be minimal. Earlier this year, an NAHB survey found that cement shortages were a concern for 27% of the builders it polled. (www.thespectrum.com)
The Spectrum (4/26/05); Kallee Nielsen
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Las Vegas Condo Conversion Rate Among Highest in U.S.
More than $9.2 billion worth of large apartment properties slated for condominium conversions changed hands in select markets last year, up from $2.1 billion in 2003, according to Marchus & Millichap Research Services. And 249 major condo conversion transactions closed in those markets, up from 80 the year before. Activity has continued to heat up this year, with 70 large conversion properties in these markets during the first quarter — more than double a year earlier. Nearly two-thirds of the transactions were concentrated in Southern California and Florida, with Miami and San Diego accounting for 24% and 22% of dollar volume respectively. Las Vegas has become one of the major condo conversion markets, with a 9% share of the $6.5 billion in conversion volume among 10 major metropolitan areas. There are some 17,000 apartment units in Las Vegas projected to be in the city’s condominium pipeline, said Dennis Smith, president of Home Builders Research. (www.reviewjournal.com)
Las Vegas Review-Journal (4/28/05); Hubble Smith
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Going Up? Elevators Invade Suburban Homes
Elevator sales for homes are growing faster than sales for apartments and office buildings at some companies, although they are still a far smaller share of the market. In the past three years, Otis Elevator Co., has seen sales for individual homes or condos jump from 12%-15% annually, compared with 3%-6% for office and apartment buildings. Part of the rising interest among home owners comes from the introduction two years ago of a smaller, less-expensive pneumatic vacuum elevator that is more practical for the single-family home. A basic two-story or three-story pneumatic model costs $20,000-$28,000, including installation, compared to $15,000-$100,000 for a standard elevator. Only one or two people can fit into the pneumatic lifts, but they can be installed more quickly and inexpensively than regular elevators because they don’t require a shaft or a control room to house hydraulic machinery. Last year, 25% of home owners whose homes were valued at more than $1 million indicated that elevators were “desirable” or “essential,” according to an NAHB survey. That compares to only 8% in 2001, said Gopal Ahluwalia, the association’s staff vice president for research. (www.wsj.com)
Wall Street Journal (4/28/05); Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan
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Rate of Minority Homeownership Hits New High
In this year’s first quarter, the portion of the nation’s minority households who owned their own homes rose to a record 51.5%, up from 50.8% in the first quarter of 2003, according to data released by the U.S. Census Bureau. The minority homeownership rate was 44.4% 30 years ago. Hispanics have accounted for most of the recent increases; their homeownership rate increased from 47.3% to 49.7% over the first-quarter to first-quarter 12-month period. Gains for African-Americans were almost flat, declining from 49.9% a year earlier to 49.3% in this year’s first quarter. In the past two years, 2.3 million minority households have become home owners, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is 43% of the way to meeting the Bush Administration’s goal of adding 5.5 million new minority home owners by 2010. There are currently 15.7 minority home owners in the country. Homeownership rates remain starkly higher for white households, which increased from 75.5% a year ago to 76% in the first three months of this year. (www.marketwatch.com)
CBS Marketwatch (4/26/05); Andrea Coombes
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The Strength of Straw
Impressed in a visit to Arizona by the color, light and architecture of authentic western houses with distressed corbels, posts and clay, and with a passion for healthy, energy-efficient materials, Lorraine and Michael Quast are building a straw bale home in Oakville, Ontario, on a mature street a couple of blocks from Lake Ontario. The Santa Fe-style house, with sun-baked wood and desert colors, is almost 4,000 square feet, but Lorraine Quast says, “a lot of that is the 16-inch wide walls.” The walls are made of straw bale plus 16-1/2 inches of cement/lime plaster on the interior and exterior of the bale. Higher labor costs have been offset by less expensive materials, so the cost of building the two-story, three-bedroom house is about the same as building a traditional home. Straw bales have a natural R-value of 40, compared to 12 in two-by-four-inch framing and 22 in two-by-six-inch construction. The straw bale walls’ ability to breathe allows for excellent air exchange. “It’s surprising to see how the house holds cold air in the summer and heat in the winter,” said Mike Holmes, from HGTV’s “Holmes on Homes” and a friend of the Quasts who is overseeing the job. “This house is a great example of a home built above and beyond the code.” The home’s walls will gain strength over time because the lime content of the plaster absorbs carbon dioxide. The walls also have superior fire retardancy, and 10 times the weight carrying capacity and four times the lateral strength of standard two-by-six framed homes, which protects against wind loads and hurricanes. (www.thestar.com)
Toronto Star (4/16/05); Shelly Sanders Greer
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The Axis of Eco Out of the Box Mobile Homes
Venice, Calif., architect Jennifer Siegal, founder and principal of the Office of Mobile Design (www.designmobile.com) builds kinetic, affordable, wheel-less homes that can be easily transported. Starting at $79,000 for 480 square feet, her Portable House is fully constructed, then trucked to the site. Her endlessly reconfigurable Swell House is assembled like Legos and features Biofiber (a recycled cabinet composite made from sunflower seeds), finishing material made from recycled newspapers and bamboo flooring; its cost is $200 per square foot. Her dwellings in EcoVille — a 40-unit live-work development for artists in downtown Los Angeles — are 60-by-12 foot boxes, stacked two stories high. (http://outside.away.com)
Outside Magazine (April, 2005) Florence Williams
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Deal May Help Marina Heights
California State University – Monterey Bay is considering a proposal from developers to grow 150 acres of the endangered sand gilia plant, a short annual with purple flowers, on its campus in exchange for scholarships and program funding. This would help pave the way for construction of the 1,050-unit Marina Heights development by providing mitigation for about 23 acres of gilia. Approved last March by the City of Monterey, Marina Heights is part of the redevelopment of Ford Ord’s 23,000 acres. The former Army base is being divided into an 18,000-acre tract where 18 threatened and endangered species will be sheltered and 10,000 acres that will provide the area with new housing and jobs. Overseeing the new plan, the Fort Ord Reuse Authority complains that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fish and Game have been dragging their feet on completing a habitat management plan, a process that started more than a decade ago. In their ongoing discussions with the university, the developers say they would establish an endowment to care for the sand gilia. Although future university plans call for wide open spaces on the school’s property, a tract of the gilia plants would require a permanent ring of protection to prevent them from being trampled. (www.montereyherald.com)
Monterey Herald (4/27/05); Sukhjit Purewal
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Functional, Solid Neighborhoods a Growth Issue
In a day-long discussion of smart-growth strategies sponsored by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and the Louisiana Police Jury Association at Southeastern Louisiana University, urban and rural planners discussed defining smart-growth strategies and the technical ways to improve urban design codes in cities and parishes. Landrieu said she wanted to make the state’s future growth consistent with her conservative upbringing in New Orleans. Growth should be a method of improving quality of life and property values, she said, and not just an end in itself. Traditional neighborhood design is the answer to sprawling suburbs, said Lafayette architect Steve Oubre, who is the visionary behind the highly successful River Ranch traditional development. He said that too many cities are invested too heavily in rules and regulations that favor the automobile over the pedestrian. “We are known throughout Europe as the auto nation. That is how all planning decisions are made,” he said. “It’s time to rethink the model.” Development of River Ranch required the waiver of 119 local ordinances, and many speakers at the conference cited the need for reforming development codes to make better neighborhood design possible. (www.2theadvocate.com)
Baton Rouge Advocate (4/22/05); Lanny Keller
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Famous Names Design New Luxury Condos
Developers of luxury condominiums are turning to big-name architects like Daniel Libeskind to distinguish their buildings from others in town. Libeskind, who created the master plan for the World Trade Center in Manhattan and designed Berlin’s Jewish Museum, has redesigned a 22-story rounded tower in Covington, Ky., across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, where 80 units will be priced between $400,000 and $1 million, a new high for the area. It will cost $36 million to build. Two-thirds of the 55 units in another Libeskind building on which construction is beginning this month in Denver have sold for more than $500 a square foot, which is a record for that city. Using an architect’s name to sell apartments is nothing new. Several apartment buildings designed by Ludwig Mies van Der Rohe in the 1950s and 1960s in Chicago, including those along Lake Shore Drive, remain among that city’s most coveted addresses. However, it is unclear whether an architect’s name provides better appreciation than a good location. Van Der Rohe’s Colonnade, a 22-story glass and metal building constructed in 1960 in Newark, N.J., has stunning views of Manhattan, but a two bedroom unit there rents for about $1,000 a month, about average for the working-class neighborhood in which it is located. (www.realestatejournal.com)
Wall Street Journal Online (4/21/05); Alex Frangos
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