South Carolina builders meet with House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt (D-S.C.) in his home district.

Builders Step Up Campaign to Revive Housing, Create Jobs

With the U.S. Congress returning from its August recess, the nation’s home builders are moving into the second phase of their “Revive Housing, Restore America” campaign, urging lawmakers in Washington to take a number of crucial steps to support housing as the framework for creating jobs and pulling the nation’s economy out of a devastating recession.

New research by tax analysts at NAHB indicates that extending the current tax credit for first-time home buyers for another year when it expires at the end of November and making it available to all buyers with qualifying incomes would create more than 347,000 jobs and an additional $16 billion in wages and salaries over the year after the legislation is enacted. ...

NAHB Analysis Finds Big Economic Gains From Reviving Housing

Components of NAHB’s ongoing grassroots “Revive Housing, Restore America” legislative drive would play a critically important role in jumpstarting the nation’s slumbering economy, according to new research from NAHB’s Economics and Housing Policy Group.

While extending the first-time home buyer tax credit and expanding it to all income-eligible principal home buyers has garnered the bulk of attention in the news media, the analysis has identified several other desirable housing policies to restore the U.S. economy as well. These include correcting the appraisal process; improving residential acquisition, development and construction (AD&C) credit conditions; and expanding the tax code’s Net Operating Loss carryback period. ...

Celebrated Humorist Dave Barry to Kick Off 2010 Builders’ Show

Dave Barry, Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist, will be the keynote speaker at the 2010 International Builders’ Show in Las Vegas on Jan. 19-22.

Barry has been a syndicated columnist for 25 years and his columns have appeared in more than 500 newspapers across the country and abroad. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1988 and, according to his official biography, “Many people are still trying to figure out how this happened.”

Dave has also written 30 books, although, also according to his biography, “virtually none of them contain useful information.” Two of his books were used as the basis for the CBS TV sitcom, "Dave's World," which aired in the late 1990s. ...