U.S. new-home construction rebounded last month to the best pace since August while permits rose to a seven-month high, a sign homebuilding is potentially stabilizing even as higher prices and borrowing costs pose headwinds.

Sales of previously owned U.S. homes rose in October for the first time in seven months, suggesting demand is stabilizing at a lower level as available properties become less scarce.

The Occupational Safety and Heath Administration published the final version of its new crane rule on Nov. 9, which covers training and certification for crane operators. The rule is a revision of a draft version published in May 2018, and it removes the need to certify operators by crane capacity rather than just type of crane.

Insurance companies, homebuilders, and city and county officials are still assessing residential and commercial building damage after Hurricane Irma tore through South Florida on Sept 10, but in general, the stricter building codes enforced after Hurricane Andrew did their job.

“Florida has the strongest wind-load building code in the United States, and by and large the code is paying dividends,” says Peter Dyga, president and CEO of Associated Builders and Contractors’ (ABC) Florida East Coast Chapter, located in Coconut Creek. “But hurricanes are very powerful storms. Property damage is 25 times worse for a Category 4 storm and 50 times worse for a Category 5 storm than the damage caused by a weaker Category 2 storm.”

Reprinted courtesy of Joanna Masterson, Construction Executive, a publication of Associated Builders and Contractors. All rights reserved.

Confidence among U.S. homebuilders unexpectedly rose in October, registering the first gain in five months amid falling lumber prices and solid demand, according to a report Tuesday from the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo.

When contractors talk certification, they’re often referring to apprenticeship, craft training and safety qualifications for field workers. But at a time when the industry is eager to fill jobs and skills gaps across the board, from the office to the field, some firms are getting creative to help all types of construction employees reach the next level of leadership.

Associated Builders and Contractors’ Wisconsin Chapter is already ahead of the game. Through its award-winning Construction U certificate programs, the chapter provides practical, management-level education for local employees who learn how to better plan, organize, communicate and monitor their daily activities, while leveraging both the hard and soft skills necessary to overcome obstacles with increased confidence.

Reprinted courtesy of Lauren Pinch, Construction Executive, a publication of Associated Builders and Contractors. All rights reserved.

Amazon.com Inc. has shown a boundless desire to put its Alexa smart-home devices in every nook and cranny of people’s houses. Just last week, it announced a raft of new gadgets, including a microwave and clock.

Now it’s making its first bet on a homebuilder.

The Seattle-based Internet giant is investing in a $6.7 million fundraising round for Plant Prefab, a California company that manufactures modules that can be assembled quickly into a home at a job site. The wager is being made through the Alexa Fund, a pool of capital Amazon created in 2015 to back startups working on new uses for voice technology.

The North Carolina Home Builders Association's three-day conference has just gotten under way, but as Hurricane Florence bears down, some of the 2,000 attendees are leaving early to prepare for the worst.

A vision of the future with smart, efficient, utopian, technology-empowered “smart cities” has gleamed on the horizon for years. The concept offers vague promises that all of a city’s infrastructure and operations will be connecting, communicating and automatically adjusting facilities and services to deliver ever higher levels of satisfaction and efficiency.

U.S. new-home construction rose less than forecast in July amid a rebound in groundbreaking for single- and multi-family houses, indicating the industry was trying to regain its footing at the start of the second half.

Key Takeaways
A strong labor market, lower taxes and improved finances are providing support to demand for housing, which indicates that homebuilding will keep expanding, albeit at a slower pace.

The largest public-private partnership investment in a national park is delivering a new experience for visitors to the landmark Gateway Arch in St. Louis, which was designed by the late-architect Eero Saarinen. The 10-year path to the opening this month was full of hurdles, including floods. And the project’s 46,000-sq-ft underground visitor center expansion needed to be built without shutting down the arch, which gets nearly 3 million visitors each year.