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On October 6, 2011, the Southern Pine Inspection Bureau (SPIB) announced it was submitting a proposal to the American Lumber Standard Committee’s (ALSC) Board of Review to lower the design properties for all grades and sizes of visually graded Southern Pine by 25%-30%. SPIB also indicated that it intended, upon approval by the ALSC Board of Review, to immediately implement and publish the new design values. Gary Ehrlich, NAHB’s Program Manager – Structural Codes & Standards, represents NAHB on the ALSC. NAHB has been working with members of its Building Systems Councils, the Structural Building Components Association (SBCA) and other industry representatives on this issue.

During the 2010 legislative session a new law was created with the support of the Home Builders Association of Mississippi regarding general liability insurance for home builders.

Here is the scenario: You’re the general contractor on a custom project, or a remodel; or you’re a lessor of equipment on any one of the following jobs, you submit your invoice for services to either the owner or the general contractor, whoever contracted you to do that job, you wait, you wait, you wait, and you wait. You don’t get paid. What do you do?

I recently gave a talk to the CPB on contracts. I titled that presentation “Anatomy of a Construction Contract: Or ‘Contracts, . . ., We Don’t Need No Stinking Contracts!’.” The secondary title was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but represents the attitude of many of my clients, over the years with the question of “Why do I need to have a written contract, isn’t my word good enough?!”

Baby boomers — people born in the post-World War II years between 1946 and 1964 — are
entering or nearing retirement age. And research shows that Americans have a strong preference to remain in their current residence for as long as possible as they grow older, meaning they will need to remodel or adapt their homes to meet their changing abilities and circumstances. This is
called aging-in-place.

Today the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) released its first NAHB/First American Improving Markets Index (IMI), a new economic index revealing metropolitan areas that have shown improvement for at least six months in three key economic areas—housing permits, employment and housing prices.