Housing & Development

WASHINGTON, DC - December 2, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan announced today that homelessness for 750,000 Americans was prevented or ended, thanks to HUD’s Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-housing Program (HPRP), funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The program provided $1.5 billion to local communities to keep families in their homes or help them find other affordable housing after a sudden financial crisis, which might have otherwise led to homelessness.

WASHINGTON, DC - December 2, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development today announced that $25 million in grants is available to help rural and tribal communities struggling to address distressed housing conditions and concentrated poverty. In a speech to the Housing Assistance Council in Washington, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said HUD’s new

TOPEKA, KS - December 1, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- The Kansas Point-in-Time Count Partnership is seeking volunteers for the 2011 count of persons experiencing homelessness in Kansas. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) awards grants to communities and local organizations that participate in homeless assistance planning programs, or what's referred to as a Continuum of Care (CoC) network. HUD requires Point-in-Time counts every two years for all networks wishing to maintain and use federal funding. In Kansas, five CoC networks will conduct the statewide coordinated count on Wednesday, January 26, 2011

WASHINGTON, D.C. - December 1, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- Bob Jones, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and a home builder from Bloomfield Hills, Mich., issued the following statement in response to the final plan unveiled today by the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

TOPEKA, KS - November 30, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- Kansas has reached a major milestone under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) - completing weatherization work for more than 50 percent of the homes the state planned to weatherize. As of November 24th, weatherization providers completed more than 3,000 homes with Recovery Act funding.

Washington, D.C. - November 26, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- The average incremental cost of constructing a new home to meet the current energy efficiency building code – the 2009 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) – comes to a mere $818.72, according to a recent study by the Building Codes Assistance Project (BCAP), a nonprofit advocacy organization that supports code adoption and implementation

WASHINGTON, D.C. - November 26, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- Mayor Richard M. Daley today appointed Andrew J. Mooney as interim head of the City’s new Department of Housing and Economic Development, which will be formed through the consolidation of the City’s Department of Community Development and the Department of Zoning and Land Use Planning as of January 1, 2011.

Washington, DC - November 25, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- As the holiday season approaches, the National Association of REALTORS® is giving thanks to American troops. NAR will provide care packages and housing assistance to support soldiers and their families here in the U.S. and abroad. Two national charities will receive support from NAR – Operation American Soldier and USA Cares.

Pittsburgh, PA - November 25, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- Rent Jungle (www.rentjungle.com) unveiled an industry-first web site, allowing apartment and rental-house hunters to search the contents of listings from thousands of other web sites – using spidering and indexing technologies similar to that of a search engine, but dedicated exclusively to the rental housing industry.

Washington, D.C. - November 24, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- U.S. Representative Charles W. Boustany, Jr., (R-Southwest Louisiana), today commended the Federal Emergency Management Agency for their efforts to assist Hurricane Rita survivors’ transition into long-term housing. FEMA announced today they are initiating a plan to help relocate the remaining residents still in temporary housing from the 2005 storms through federal, state, local and voluntary agency efforts

PHILADELPHIA, PA - November 24, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced today the approval of a request from the state of West Virginia to extend FEMA’s temporary disaster housing program from November 1...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - November 24, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- Fannie Mae's (FNMA/OTC) most recent nationwide housing survey finds that Americans are less certain that the housing market has bottomed, and continue to be wary of buying a home. The Third Quarter 2010 Fannie Mae National Housing Survey polled homeowners and renters between July 2010 and September 2010. Findings were compared to similar surveys conducted in June 2010, January 2010, and December 2003.

MINNEAPOLIS, MI - November 24, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- United Properties announces that the Ford Center* has signed a lease with HGA Architects and Engineers for 80,000 sq. ft. in its historic office building in the Minneapolis Warehouse District. To ready the Ford Center for 2011 renovations, United Properties also recently received historic renovation design approval from the National Park Service and the Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Commission, and approval for a building addition from the City of Minneapolis Planning Commission.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - November 24, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- Construction employment expanded in 29 states between September and October, while fewer people are working in construction compared to last year in 39 states, the Associated General Contractors of America reported in an analysis of state employment data released today by the Labor Department. The new figures continue a nearly year-long trend of ups and downs in construction employment as the industry performs stimulus-funded work yet grapples with broad market uncertaint

Washington, DC - November 23, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- The Federal Housing Finance Agency today reported that the National Average Contract Mortgage Rate for the Purchase of Previously Occupied Homes by Combined Lenders, used as an index in some ARM contracts, was 4.49 percent based on loans closed in October. This is a decrease of 0.06 percent from the previous month.

WASHINGTON, DC - November 22, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development today unveiled a new website that consolidates a wide variety of economic and housing market data at the regional, state, metropolitan area and county levels. Using data from the Census Bureau, Labor Department, State and Local governments, housing industry sources, as well as HUD’s own field economists, the new website employs interactive maps that allow visitors to access a variety of reports – from a region-wide look at employment and housing activity to individual county-level figures on population trends, rental activity and vacancy rates.

WASHINGTON D.C.- November 22, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- More than 6,000 environmental and economic development officials, finance and insurance providers, risk managers, planners, attorneys, civil engineers and students are expected to attend the U.S. EPA co-sponsored National Brownfields Conference, April 3-5, 2011, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia.

WASHINGTON, DC - November 22, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Department of the Treasury today released the November edition of the Obama Administration’s Housing Scorecard (www.hud.gov/scorecard). The latest housing figures show continued signs of stabilization in house prices and high home affordability due in part to record low mortgage interest rates. The housing scorecard is a comprehensive report on the nation’s housing market.

WASHINGTON, DC - November 22, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- At a Middle Class Task Force event today, co-hosted by the Department of Justice’s Access to Justice Initiative, Vice President Biden announced a series of steps designed to help middle class and low-income families secure their legal rights. These actions include strengthening foreclosure mediation programs, helping veterans secure the legal help they need, and making it easier for workers to find a qualified attorney when they believe their rights have been violated.

WASHINGTON, DC - November 19, 2010 - (RealEstateRama) -- Exemplary achievements in the development of workforce housing are being celebrated tonight by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Terwilliger Center for Workforce Housing. Four developments --33Comm in Chestnut Hill, Mass.; Capitol Quarter: Phase 1 in Washington, D.C.; Fire Clay Lofts in Denver; and Miller’s Court in Baltimore have been selected as the winners of the ULI Terwilliger Center’s Jack Kemp Workforce Housing Models of Excellence Awards.