For the past five months (September 2009 through January 2010), the Consumer Price Index (CPI) has risen 0.2% per month. Building materials prices are an exception to general inflation trends, which appear to be tame. On a year-over-year basis, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is up 2.6%. Excluding food and…
The headline read “Construction Worker Rated the 8th Worst Job.” Being a Builder who started out as construction worker, I just had to investigate further. Here is what I found. The headline referred to JobsRated.com’s 2010 Jobs Rated report which the website says “offers a comprehensive analysis of 200 different…
Welcome to the second in my series of blog posts on the Business of Building. We started Part 1 with a quiz. I asked what the average Net Profit for a Builder is in a normal market. The correct answer was C. 3.7% to 8.7%. That was based on the…
For the 80 percent of home buyers who need a mortgage to buy a home, the two major factors that determine affordability are mortgage interest rates and house prices. It appears that many buyers have been waiting for home prices to fall further while hoping that mortgage interest rates will…
Welcome to the first in my series of blog posts on the Business of Building. Let’s start with a quiz. In a normal market, what is the average Net Profit for a Builder? Is it 21% to 30% 17.3% to 20.9% 3.7% to 8.7% -5% to 0% It has…
