NBN Online for the week of April 21, 2008

Credit Well Drying Up for Builders, Too, Congress Told

The mortgage credit crunch has spilled over into land acquisition, land development and home construction (AD&C) lending, increasing the challenges faced by builders in the current housing downturn, NAHB told the Congress last week.

“With private securities markets in disarray and banks retrenching, a bona fide credit crunch is underway,” Bob Mitchell, a home builder from Rockville, Md. and former president of NAHB, told the Senate Small Business Committee during a hearing on “The Impact of the Credit Crunch on Small Business.”

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States, Localities Have Options to Stimulate the Economy

NAHB has developed an online resource guide suggesting policies that state and local governments can pursue to stimulate investment and growth and boost the economy.

“We tend to look to the federal government to take action when the economy slows considerably,” said NAHB President Sandy Dunn. “But state and local governments also have tools at their disposal to address the unique economic conditions in their communities. This resource guide explains some of the economic tools that have been tried and proven successful.”

Tidewater Builders Paint a Brighter Picture of Their Housing Market

The Tidewater Builders Association recently discovered that a little face time with local news media executives was all it took to set the record straight about the state of the local housing market.

Housing has been holding up fairly well in Virginia’s Tidewater area — the southeastern portion of the state, including Hampton Roads — due to a strong local economy and the continuous arrival of new residents to a region with the largest concentration of military bases and facilities anywhere in the world.