The United States Post Office has been attempting to reduce or eliminate sidewalk and curbside delivery of mail to individual homes, especially in new subdivisions. Instead, the Post Office now wants to deliver mail primarily to centralized or “cluster” mail boxes, each serving multiple homes in a development. So far, implementation of this policy has varied across the…
About two years ago, NAHB reported that 22 percent of single-family builders had used aerial drones (or unmanned aircraft systems, as the Department of Defense calls them) at least once in their construction businesses. But the times they are a-changing. When we revisited the issue in March of this year, we saw that the percentage…
From the trough of the housing downturn in 2010 through 2015, the number of homes under construction increased by 131 percent and the number of employees working in construction trade businesses increased by 18 percent. Over that span, how much would you guess the number of one-person construction trade firms increased? The answer, believe it or…
The residential sector accounts for less than 8 percent of water used in the U.S., according to a recent study published by NAHB. The recent NAHB study draws on information published by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The USGS compiles data on water use every five years. The latest numbers (from 2010) were published in 2014. The USGS labels water used by residences…
A recent NAHB study shows that the median size of a subdivision in the United States is 25 total acres, and the median number of housing units in a subdivision is 50. The results are based on a survey of development projects currently under way or recently completed, conducted by NAHB’s Economics and Housing Policy…
NAHB’s recently published Housing Preferences of the Boomer Generation shows that homebuyers in the Baby Boom Generation want a suburban neighborhood consisting of all single-family detached homes more often than any other community feature (of the 19 listed), and nearly 80 percent prefer a cul de sac over efficient traffic flow when given the choice. These results…
