The Home Star Coalition, a broad-based and diverse group of small and medium sized businesses and nationally recognized companies, labor and environmental organizations and associations, today applauded the inclusion of the Home Star legislation in The Clean Energy Jobs and Oil Company Accountability Act.

“Home Star is good policy, but even better practicality in its ability to deliver a triple win for America - it creates clean energy jobs for our nation's skilled construction workers and at U.S. manufacturing facilities, it benefits homeowners through comfort and energy efficient improvements to their homes, and it helps the environment through long-term energy efficiency gains,” says WellHome President Larry Laseter.

“I am a second-generation insulation contractor with branch operations in Arizona, Nevada and California,” says Insulation Contractors Association of America (ICAA) President Jeff Banker, of Banker Insulation in Phoenix Arizona. “Passage of the HOME STAR legislation would enable our family-owned business to hire contractors in all of our locations. I urge the Senate to please help small businesses across America by passing HOME STAR.”

The Home Star legislation, which passed the House in May, has bi-partisan support and over 30 co-sponsors in the Senate. Home Star also has the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM).

Home Star is a market-driven, low-bureaucracy program they say would create jobs fast by scaling the existing home energy efficiency improvement industry.
 

A unanimous ten-member jury has awarded a landmark $110,658,800 verdict to the Gray Development Group against Northeast Phoenix Partners - the master developer of Desert Ridge and the Chicago-based developer of the financially troubled CityNorth project at Desert Ridge. The case concerned Gray's attempts to develop a 41-acre parcel located in Desert Ridge on Deer Valley Road directly across the street from the Desert Ridge Marketplace and the CityNorth development. Gray acquired the parcel for $32 million in 2004 at a state auction. Gray presented evidence at trial proving that Northeast Phoenix Partners, an entity controlled by the Thomas J. Klutznick Company of Chicago, abused its powers as Master Developer to block Gray's development efforts between 2004 and 2007 in order to protect its neighboring CityNorth development.

Bruce Gray, the Chairman of Gray Development Group, says, "I have known for six years now that I had a legal right to build my apartments in Desert Ridge and that the Klutznick organization was denying me that basic right. For years, they have made decisions at Desert Ridge that harm the community, harm local developers, and benefit their private CityNorth project. This circumstance must end. It took over three years to present our case to a jury of Maricopa County residents. I am personally gratified that today an Arizona jury has unanimously confirmed what I've known all along, finding in our favor on all counts."

MRIS today announced that the Mid-Atlantic Housing Market continues to show signs of recovery in the second quarter of 2010. MRIS's Mid-Year 2010 Trends in Housing report, a joint publication of MRIS and Delta Associates, presented several market indicators that have improved over previous quarters and years in the Washington region. These indicators include:

• Unit sales volume in the second quarter of 2010 increased 60.6% compared to the first quarter of 2010, and was up 15.9% compared to the second quarter of 2009.
• The average sales price in the second quarter of 2010 was 4.2% higher than in the second quarter of 2009.  This marks the third straight quarter that metro-wide prices have risen on a trailing 12-month basis. 
• Time on market in the second quarter of 2010 averaged 56 days, down from 71 days in the first quarter of 2010 and 93 days in the second quarter of 2009.  This is the lowest time on market since 2006.
• The Washington metro area has an average of 4.5 months’ worth of inventory at the current sales pace, down from 5.1 months’ worth one year ago.

Keys to furthering the market’s recovery include local job growth, continued reduced levels of home building, and the condition of the home finance industry, including relatively low interest rates, according to the report.
“While the Mid-Atlantic housing market is not yet performing at the robust levels of 2005, it is clearly showing some important signs of recovery that are crucial to reestablishing a stable housing market,” said John L. Heithaus, CMO of MRIS.

The Commerce Department’s U.S. Bureau of the Census today released new home sales data for June 2010.  Sales of new single-family houses jumped 23.6% in June to 330,000 units, well above private-sector expectations of a 3.7% increase.
 
"This is welcome news, although month-to-month housing data are volatile," said Commerce Department Under Secretary for Economic Affairs Rebecca Blank.  "But one key ingredient for a healthy housing market is job growth, and the President remains tightly focused on ensuring that the labor market continues to recover."

Eons ago, 2003 to be exact, BUILDERnews wrote about Lake Las Vegas, and how it was going to change the landscape of Vegas and surrounding areas. Located on 2,600 acres, it offered everything - from Jack Nicklaus courses to clubhouses and hundreds of lots overlooking fairways. But its jewel was definitely the 320-acre private lake, with 10 miles of shoreline, beaches, hundreds of private waterfront homesites and docks, as well as a marina and a private yacht club.

Then, the housing crash. Then bankruptcy.

And now, a reemergence of a new Lake Las Vegas? Perhaps.

Lake Las Vegas has announced it has completed the steps necessary to effectuate its Plan of Reorganization and has successfully emerged from Chapter 11.

“This is an extraordinary result,” said Frederick E. Chin, CEO of Lake Las Vegas, and founder of The Atalon Group LLC. “The homebuilders, creditors, residents, homeowner groups, vendors, and the City of Henderson worked together to preserve the integrity of the community, resolve a multitude of complex issues that hindered its continuation and establish a platform for the future that enhances the objectives of property owners, homebuilders, lenders and local government.

Mr. Chin said that the challenges faced in reorganizing Lake Las Vegas were immense and were exacerbated by the unprecedented downturn in the real estate and capital markets throughout the United States. The downturn had a particularly acute effect on the viability of master planned communities such as Lake Las Vegas that were based on a high level of amenities.

Despite all of the challenges, meaningful progress was made in re-establishing the position of the community during the bankruptcy cases, including:

• Securing new post-bankruptcy funding of more than $30 million to provide Lake Las Vegas with adequate liquidity to meet its working capital needs.
• Successfully resolving ownership and property boundary issues in Phase II, allowing landowners to effectively develop or market their property.
• Successfully settling and resolving third-party litigation, disputes with homeowner associations, and more than $25 million in mechanic’s liens.
• Completing critically important repairs to the community’s existing infrastructure, as well as securing additional funds to construct other infrastructure that facilitates future development.
• Preserving the overall appearance of the community and enhancing its overall marketability by securing water and development rights.

BUILDERnews will be watching as this develops and progresses - this could be a game-changer in the industry.

Single-family housing starts were virtually unchanged from the previous month at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 454,000 units in June, according to newly released figures by the U.S. Commerce Department. Meanwhile, a 21.5% decline on the more volatile multifamily side weighed down the overall housing production number, which fell 5% to a 549,000-unit rate.

“As our most recent member surveys have indicated, builders remain very cautious in light of the sluggish pace of the economic recovery and the hesitancy they are seeing among potential home buyers,” noted Bob Jones, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and a home builder from Bloomfield Hills, MI. “However, today’s report is actually somewhat encouraging, because it indicates that single-family production is stabilizing following an expected lull that occurred with the end of the home buyer tax credit program.”

Meanwhile, nationwide permit issuance, an indicator of future building activity, rose 2.1% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 586,000 units in June. While single-family permits fell 3.4% to 421,000 units for the month, that decline was due entirely to a drop-off in the South, with every other region holding steady or better on the single-family side. Multifamily permits rose 19.6% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 165,000 units in June.  Combined single- and multifamily permit issuance was up 32.3 percent in the Northeast, down 10.8 percent in the Midwest, down 3.1% in the South, and up 9.7% in the West in June.

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National homebuilder Lennar Corporation, announced today that on Friday, July 16, a California court issued a comprehensive tentative decision in favor of the homebuilder in a long running, widely publicized lawsuit against the Company initiated by a joint venture partner, Briarwood Capital LLC, a company wholly owned by Nicolas Marsch III.

The Superior Court of the State of California, County of San Diego, issued the 48 page tentative decision. The court concluded that "The story Mr. Marsch told on direct examination was compelling, but it did not withstand close scrutiny and cross-examination. Ultimately, Mr. Marsch was thoroughly impeached with his own testimony, documents and testimony of other witnesses." The court also found that "Mr. Marsch repeatedly gave false testimony on material issues."

Under California court procedures, the tentative decision will become final unless within ten days a party identifies additional issues to be included in the decision.

A copy of the tentative decision can be found here.
 

Builder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes declined for a second consecutive month in July to its lowest level since April of 2009, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) released today. The HMI fell two points from a downwardly revised number in the previous month to 14 for July.

"We continue to see a lull in home buying activity following the expiration of the federal home buyer tax credit program, as many of the sales that would have occurred this summer were likely pulled forward to meet that program's deadline," noted NAHB Chairman Bob Jones, a home builder from Bloomfield Hills, MI. "In addition, builders are reporting continuing consumer hesitancy regarding home purchases due to uncertainty in the overall economy and job markets."

Each of the HMI's component indexes recorded declines in July. The component gauging current sales conditions fell two points to 15, while the component gauging sales expectations in the next six months edged down one point to 21 and the component gauging traffic of prospective buyers fell three points to 10.

Regionally, the HMI results were mixed in July. The Northeast, which has a smaller survey sample and therefore is prone to greater monthly volatility, posted a seven-point increase to 23 this month, while the Midwest posted a one-point improvement to 15. The South and West each posted five-point declines to 14 and 9, respectively.

Taylor Morrison Communities has acquired a portion of Crystal Falls in northwest Austin. The company says it closed on the almost 1,200-lot parcel on June 30 with developer, The Lookout Group, Inc.

Initially started by the Lookout Group in the mid-1990s, Crystal Falls is the largest master-planned community in Austin and the last undeveloped area of hill country in Austin’s booming northwest corridor, an area known for its sweeping views and proximity to major employers. To date, approximately 1,000 acres of Crystal Falls’ 5,000 acres have been developed.