NBN Online for the week of August 28, 2006

NAHB Study Shows How Much Bathrooms Are Really Worth

Resulting from in-depth analysis by NAHB, builders and remodelers in suburban locations can now provide their customers with a fairly precise estimate of how much bathrooms add to the value of their homes.

Based on data from the American Housing Survey (AHS) and updated several times over the years, the NAHB model used to estimate the price effects of bathrooms “has consistently shown that an added bathroom has one of the strongest impacts of any home feature on single-family detached home values,” said NAHB economist Paul Emrath.

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Lumber Prices Provided by Random Lengths

Sustainable TND Community, Daybreak, on Tour at Fall Board

Daybreak, a Traditional Neighborhood Design (TND) master planned community near Salt Lake City that has gained national recognition for its innovation and sustainability, will be featured during the National Sales and Marketing Council's 2006 Fall Housing Tour, on Saturday, Sept. 16 at the upcoming NAHB Fall Board of Directors Meeting.

Daybreak, developed by Kennecott Land, part of the Rio Tinto international mining company, is being developed on 4,126 acres near the Oquirrh (pronounced “oh-ker”) Mountains on the west side of the Salt Lake Valley. The community’s build-out is expected to take about 15 years.

NAHB Economist Calls Inclusionary Zoning a Bad Idea

As a solution to a shortage of affordably priced housing in many parts of the country, inclusionary zoning is “just a plain bad idea” and “it should be dumped in the trash bin,” NAHB economist Elliot Eisenberg told the news media during the Southeast Coast Builders Conference earlier this month in Orlando, Fla.

Sky-high housing prices in such markets as Los Angeles; Miami, Fla.; the Washington, D.C. area’s Montgomery County, Md.; and Seattle are to a great extent the result of overly restrictive zoning and regulation, he said, and government attempts to correct the situation by requiring builders to set aside a certain percentage of their homes for households with lower incomes only add another layer of regulation, further distorting housing and land prices.

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