Arkansas Home Builders Association

Millennials place a premium on casual, comfortable outdoor spaces for entertaining friends and family, Better Homes and Gardens research shows. The millennial generation is poised to make a significant impact on home design with its strong preferences for energy efficiency and smart-home technology; comfortable and workable kitchens; and more casual spaces, said speakers today from NAHB and  Better Homes and Gardens . But first, they have to move out of their parents’ homes and into a place of their own, said NAHB Assistant Vice President for Surveys and Research Rose Quint. About 15% of adults ages 25-34 live with a parent, about 3% more than the highest share of 12% between 1983 and 2007. That translates into 1.3 million people who normally “would be out there, forming their own households, demanding their own units,” either as buyers or renters, she said. Quint had anticipated the new mortgage programs and looser mortgage insurance requir...

The House Energy and Commerce Committee today approved NAHB-supported energy legislation that will reform the role of the Department of Energy (DOE) in the development of energy codes and encourage meaningful savings for residential construction that are achievable and cost-effective. Of note to the housing community, the North American Energy Security and Infrastructure Act of 2015 included a provision that would promote energy efficiency in buildings while ensuring that home builders and home owners are not burdened by unreasonable regulations. Specifically, the provision would: Improve affordability by requiring any DOE-supported code proposal has a payback period of 10 years or less, meaning that these higher costs will be paid back through utility savings. Increase transparency in the development of model building energy codes by ensuring that all DOE code change proposals are made available to the public, including calculations on costs and savings. En...