Genton Property Group (GPG) announced May 30 that construction on the Four Seasons Private Residences Los Angeles is underway this week after finalization and funding of a $239 million construction loan last week.

The home building industry “has turned brisk and is gaining momentum as consumers of various ages, motivated by high consumer confidence, seek new places to live,” ABC News reported.

This March single-family homes sales increased by 15.6 percent over March of last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Furthermore, “the median national price paid for new homes has been rising steeply, ascending from about $230,000 in 2012 to about $311,000 currently."

Since 2007, the U.S. has been underbilling, ABC News stated: “[T]he nation needs an estimated 1.5 million new homes of various types annually to meet the demand, but there haven’t been that many since 2007. Since then, the scenario has been one of pronounced under-building. After the housing bubble popped in 2008, home sales plummeted, bottoming out in 2013-14. But it started picking up markedly in late 2015/early 2016.”

Aberdeen Investment Management projects that "pent-up demand" for homes "will propel industry growth well into the 2020s."

New York’s condo market is brimming with costly apartments in glittering new towers. Now it’s about to get more pricey homes, this time in a building that’s more than a century old.

Ziel Feldman’s HFZ Capital Group plans to convert 95 empty rental units at the Belnord, a gated complex occupying a full square block on the Upper West Side, into condos that will be listed at $3,000 a square foot on average -- more than the boroughwide average for new-development sales in the first quarter. He’s hired architect Robert A.M. Stern for the project at the landmarked limestone-and-brick building, reaching for a formula that’s succeeded at other properties that have pushed price boundaries in Manhattan.

SummerHill Homes Group is taking advantage of a hot construction market and is building across California. The development company currently has more than a dozen residential projects underway across the state worth approximately $2.5 billion.

The World Economic Forum and The Boston Consulting Group recently released a report to encourage innovators redefine the AEC industry. They give recommendations and feature ten lighthouse innovation case studies to demonstrate the potential of innovation.

The report is the second publication of the multi-year Future of Construction project. The first report showed how many innovations have emerged but have not yet been broadly adopted. The second report suggests remedies, drawing key lessons and policy recommendations from leading innovators and disruptors.

ENR Southwest is pleased to announce this year’s class of Top Young Professionals in the architecture, engineering and construction community. Previously referred to as the Top 20 Under 40 competition, the program has been refined to allow judges to select fewer than 20 honorees if candidates do not reach the judges’ threshold of excellence.

Ashiana Housing Ltd. led developers higher in Mumbai after India proposed to give “infrastructure status” to affordable housing in the South Asian nation.

Ashiana Housing rose 20 percent to 173.25 rupees at 2:22 p.m. in Mumbai, Kolte-Patil Developers Ltd. added 14 percent and Ganesh Housing Corp. climbed 7.6 percent after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that “affordable housing will now be given infrastructure status, which will enable these projects to avail the associated benefits.” He was presenting the federal budget for the year starting April 1 to lawmakers.

Reprinted courtesy of Anto Antony, Bloomberg and Pooja Thakur Mahrotri, Bloomberg

There are many figures in the tech world who are preaching the wonders of augmented reality, mixed reality and expensive headsets that can project virtual images into the real world. But Cody Nowak is looking for the realistic applications that, eventually, will aid the average worker on the construction site.

Steady in-migration and employment growth will keep most sectors of the construction industry in the Mountain states healthy in 2017.

Members of the International Code Council have voted online to "approve as submitted" the updated structural building-design standard, written by the American Society of Civil Engineers' Structural Engineering Institute, for inclusion as a reference standard in the 2018 edition of ICC's International Building Code. However, the online ballot results are preliminary, pending certification by ICC's validation committee and confirmation by ICC's board of directors.

Confidence among U.S. homebuilders in November remained near the highest level this year, a sign of strength in the residential real estate market, according to data Wednesday from the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo.