Constructor
Remember that stuff about hiding under a table or standing in a doorway??
Well, this guy has a completely reverse opinion. This is very interesting, different from what we have been taught or thought.
Please read this and pass the info along to your family members; it could save their lives someday!
Builder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes declined to 16 in December, 1 point lower compared with November, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI).
The component gauging home sales expectations for the next six months decreased two points in December to 26, compared with November. The component gauging traffic of prospective buyers remained unchanged for a third consecutive month, at 13, according to the report.
Builder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes remained at 17 in November, unchanged from October, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI). The component gauging home sales expectations for the next six months rose two points in November to 28, compared with October. Many of the responses to the HMI were received prior to congressional action to extend and expand the federal tax credit for home buyers.
In a special questions section of the HMI survey, one-third of respondents indicated they have recently lost sales due to low appraisal values, up from one-quarter of respondents who indicated as much in a survey taken in July. Builders report that low appraisal values often are tied to the use of foreclosed and distressed properties as “comps” in the appraisal process.
Source: NAHB
In a major victory for NAHB that will boost the fledgling housing recovery and help struggling business owners nationwide, Congress last week approved legislation that will extend the first-time home buyer tax credit beyond its Nov. 30 deadline and expand it to a wider group of home buyers. The bill also provides relief to cash-strapped home builders by providing broader tax benefits for businesses with net operating losses (NOLs).
The legislation, which was signed into law by President Obama on Nov. 6, will extend the $8,000 credit for first-time home buyers for sales contracts entered into by April 30, 2010 and closed on by June 30. It has been expanded to include a new $6,500 credit for owners of existing homes who are purchasing a new principal residence. Existing home owners can claim the $6,500 tax credit if they have been residing in their principal residence for five consecutive years out of the last eight.
In more good news, the income eligibility limits to claim the full credit amount for both groups of home buyers have been raised from $75,000 for single taxpayers and $150,000 for married taxpayers filing a joint return to $125,000 for individuals and $225,000 for married couples.
NAHB’s consumer-oriented Web site, www.FederalHousingTaxCredit.com, provides complete details on the enhanced home buyer tax credit.
NAHB has launched a set of resources at www.nahb.org/taxcreditresources to help association members understand and promote the new tax credit.
Today, Frank Lloyd Wright’s 142nd birthday, we’re excited to announce the Design It: Shelter Competition. Held by the Guggenheim Museum and Google SketchUp, the competition is inspired by Wright’s assignment for his apprentices at Taliesin: If you wanted to study to be an architect with Wright, you had to design and build a shelter in the desert outside of Phoenix, Arizona. Then you had to live and study in it.
Unlike the Taliesin assignment, the shelters in this competition are virtual. To enter, use Google SketchUp to design a small structure where someone might sleep and work. Your shelter should be created for a specific site anywhere in the world and geo-located in Google Earth. It also should conform to size constraints and must not include running water, gas or electricity. When you’re done with your design, upload it to the Google 3D Warehouse, then fill out the submission form on the Guggenheim website. Check out the video below to learn more:
The deadline for submissions is August 23rd. You can find more details, including information about judging and prizes, on the the Google SketchUp Blog or the competition website. Good luck!
The television show “Deadliest Catch” depicts commercial crab fishermen in the Bering Sea. Another, “Dirty Jobs,” shows all kinds of grueling work; one episode featured a guy who inseminates turkeys for a living. The weird fascination of these shows must lie partly in the fact that such confrontations with material reality have become exotically unfamiliar. Many of us do work that feels more surreal than real. Working in an office, you often find it difficult to see any tangible result from your efforts. What exactly have you accomplished at the end of any given day? Where the chain of cause and effect is opaque and responsibility diffuse, the experience of individual agency can be elusive. “Dilbert,” “The Office” and similar portrayals of cubicle life attest to the dark absurdism with which many Americans have come to view their white-collar jobs.
Is there a more “real” alternative (short of inseminating turkeys)?
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