Glass Failure in High-Rises Shocks Experts
Building experts were dumfounded by the widespread loss of windows during Hurricane Wilma, including at the JQ Marriott, Four Seasons, Espirito Santo Plaza, the Colonial Bank building and the Greenberg Traurig building in Miami; the Grand View Palace apartments in North Bay Village; and the Broward Financial Center, the Broward County Courthouse and the New River Village apartment buildings in Ft. Lauderdale. “This looks like Berlin after the war,” said Miami Police Chief John Timoney, as he surveyed more than a half-dozen ravaged buildings on Brickell. “I don’t know what to make of it. These buildings are supposed to resist winds up to 150 miles per hour.” While the causes won’t be known until inspectors examine the structures, an obvious suspect is wind-driven debris, possibly gravel in older high-rise roofing systems applied atop tar and paper to protect the waterproofing. Once a window breaks, the flying shards can become missiles themselves, said Scott Schiff, a professor of civil engineering at Clemsen University, and also expose other windows to internal pressure blowouts as hurricane winds howl inside. (www.miami.com)
Miami Herald (10/26/05); Curtis Morgan and Matthew Haggman
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The Fate of Water-Soaked Wood
A research physicist with the Forest Products Laboratory, an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the nation’s leading wood research institute, says there isn’t much experience with the sort of wood-saturation that occurred in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, “But there is little chance that studs will radically fail. There’s furniture made from wood that has been under water for 100 years. Where you get decay is in the interface between dry and wet.” But Ken Ford from NAHB says that “as a general rule, wood saturated with moisture inherently weakens. I’ve heard that as little as six hours and as long as two days might be the tipping point” for wood-frame studs becoming structurally unsound. In repairing flooded homes, experts do agree that engineered products such as particle board will have to be discarded and that some woods, such as cypress, perform notably better than others. (www.timespicayune.com)
New Orleans Times-Picayune (10/11/05); Renee Peck
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Bernanke: There’s No Housing Bubble to Go Bust
In testimony to Congress before he was nominated by President Bush to replace Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben S. Bernanke said that the nearly 25% increase in house prices over the past two years “largely reflect strong economic fundamentals” such as strong growth in jobs, incomes and household formations. He noted that house prices are unlikely to continue to rise at current rates, but a moderate cooling in the housing market is unlikely to compromise the nation’s economic growth. Mirroring Greenspan’s views, Bernanke believes that “the Fed’s job is to protect the economy, not to protect individual asset prices,” said William Dudley, chief economist for Goldman Sachs U.S. Economics Research. Bernanke would be unlikely to reduce short-term interest rates for the sake of individual home owners if the housing market should slow more than he expects, and has argued for many years that the Fed should respond to rising or falling prices for stocks, real estate or other assets only if they are affecting inflation or economic growth in an undesirable way. (www.washingtonpost.com) Washington Post (10/27/05); Nell Henderson
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Rising Energy Costs Start to Gnaw at Home Owner Budgets
With the prices of natural gas and heating oil soaring, one of the first questions prospective home buyers are asking is how much it costs to heat the home. “Energy costs are becoming a larger part of expenses so people may change what they look for in a new home,” said Thomas Kenney, director of engineering services for the NAHB Research Center. According to Kenney, the average annual energy cost today is $1,454, up from $1,190 10 years ago. The Energy Department is predicting that winter heating bills will be a third to a half higher than last year for most families across the country — an average of $350 more for natural gas users and $378 more for fuel oil users. Compounding the problem is the recent popularity of airy cathedral ceilings that add more cubic feet of space to be heated. A proliferation of electrical outlets in homes for an increasing number of appliances such as computers and their peripherals is also helping to increase energy costs. (www.post-gazette.com)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (10/26/05); Aleksandrs Rozens, Associated Press
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Cold Facts; Heating Bills Are About to Hit Housing’s Front Burner
If rising heating bills aren’t just a blip, housing may feel a blow more than in previous price spikes because of America’s fondness for increasingly larger homes in areas that require longer commutes, according to some real estate analysts. “When you see a $200- or $300-a-month heating bill turn into $500 or $600, that raises eyebrows,” said David Johnston, a Boulder, Colo. consultant on green building and energy conservation. “People are going to start looking at how far they commute.” But NAHB economist Michael Carliner says that consumers didn’t alter their housing preferences during previous energy crises. “The ’70s and ’80s gave us a pretty good idea of what people say [about energy conservation] and what they actually do. They are different things,” said Carliner. “They don’t tend to buy smaller houses or houses with lower ceilings or houses that are closer to work, to any significant extent. They tend to be more conscious of how efficient the equipment is in the house, and how well-insulated it is. There will be increased attention to things like that.” (www.chicagotribune.com)
Chicago Tribune (10/23/05); Mary Umberger
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When Workers Can’t Buy Homes, It Hurts Employers Too
Employers in Sacramento, Calif., where the percentage of households who can afford to buy a median-priced home has gone from 40% to 26% in the last year, are finding it harder to hire new people from outside the region unless they come from even higher-priced housing markets, such as those in the San Francisco Bay area or Southern California. A home that cost $350,000 five years ago is now $500,000-$600,000. Kaiser Permanente, the largest private-sector employer in Greater Sacramento, offers partial home-loan assistance to doctors who agree to come to town and make their career at the company. The longer they stay, the better the benefit. Nationally, the cost of moving an employee now costs $70,771 and 73% of workers reluctant to move cite the high cost of housing as the reason, according to Pam O’Connor, president and chief executive officer of RELO Direct Inc. in Chicago. (www.bizjournals.com)
Sacramento Business Journal (10/10/05); Kathy Robertson
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Historic Chapel Being Restored
The Southern Arizona Home Builders Association recently offered to upgrade downtown Tucson, Ariz.’s Immaculate Mary Chapel, an adobe structure constructed in 1916 by master builder Manuel Flores. The association began work earlier this month with the help of 16 youths from the local Fred G. Acosta Job Corps, who have been participating in the project as part of their job training. The building is one of four behind St. Augustine Cathedral owned by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson, which emerged last month from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and does not have the $4 million in funds it is expected to cost to restore the crumbling structures. “This shows that faith does move mountains,” said Rosie Garcia of the Friends group, which expects to restore all four buildings to create a Cathedral square, including a museum and refurbished social hall. “Consider that across the street from here so much of Tucson’s history is buried under concrete. This is what is left,” said Alex Jacome, from the builders association. (www.azstarnet.com)
Arizona Daily Star (10/19/05); Stephanie Innes
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The Dog Ate My Job
Some builders in the white-hot Tampa Bay, Fla. housing market are taking steps in their contracts to penalize buyers who buy and sell to turn a quick profit. The Tampa Bay division of Westfield Homes charges $20,000 if the home is sold or rented in the first year. The restriction is recorded with the deed and it’s a lien that requires the signature of the builder if an exception for a hardship such as a job transfer or divorce is to be made. The company’s president says that investor sales have dropped by 99% as a result of the strict language. At Morrison Homes, an addendum on the purchase and sale agreement, which is recorded with the title, requires the builder to be notified if the home is resold within two years. In the first year, the buyer must pay Morrison $10,000 or any profit realized over the original sale price, whichever is greater. In the second year, they have to pay the greater of 50% of the profits or $20,000. At KB Home, “If you rent your home out in the first year or sell it, we reserve the right to take the profit or the rent,” said division president Marshall Gray. (www.sptimes.com)
St. Petersburg Times (8/20/05); Judy Stark
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