Public

Sales of newly built, single-family homes rose 5.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 507,000 units in July, according to newly released data from HUD and the U.S. Census Bureau. “Our builders are reporting higher traffic and more serious buyers, and are adding inventory in anticipation of future business,” said Tom Woods, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and a home builder from Blue Springs, Mo.

Six American communities will receive free sustainable neighborhood planning and design consultation in 2015-2016 from Global Green USA with the help of a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Building Blocks for Sustainable Communities Program. Global Green will assemble a team of sustainability experts to conduct three-day visits to communities and provide comprehensive recommendations for infrastructure and policy changes aimed at helping the communities build a future that is more resource-efficient, livable, healthy, equitable, and environmentally responsible.

The pedestrian bridge that links Columbus, Ohio’s new Hilton Columbus Downtown hotel to the adjacent Greater Columbus Convention Center across High Street, the main thoroughfare through downtown, has earned national recognition in the 2015 Innovative Design in Engineering and Architecture with Structural Steel awards program (IDEAS2)

President Obama is unveiling a set of impressive private and public sector commitments aimed at accelerating the Nation’s transition to a cleaner and more productive energy economy. The private sector commitments, combined with a robust set of executive actions, will expand opportunities to install energy saving technologies in households, while also driving the development of low-cost clean energy technologies.

The 2015 NCHV Veterans Access to Housing Summit, "The Drive to December", will be held Oct. 5-6 at the Grand Hyatt Washington in Washington, D.C. This year's Summit will gather Federal agencies involved in ending veteran homelessness, technical assistance partners for the major homeless veteran service programs, and experts from around the country to help you set a high-speed plan for the final 100 days of the Five-Year Plan to End Veteran Homelessness

In response to the President's planned remarks to expand markets for solar energy and energy efficiency in Las Vegas tonight at Sen. Harry Reid's Clean Energy Summit, Rhone Resch, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) released the following statement

This Sunday, the Lubicon Lake Band of Little Buffalo will hold a community feast and ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate the installation of an 80 panel, 20.8 kilowatt solar system that will power the adjacent community health centre with the excess fed into the grid. The community owned and operated solar system was built with support from Bullfrog Power, Canadian Energy, Honour the Earth Foundation, W Dusk Energy Group, Greenpeace Canada, and actress/environmentalist Jane Fonda.

Ten Urban Land Institute members have been selected to receive scholarships to attend ULI’s 2015 Fall Meeting in San Francisco through a program sponsored by the institute’s Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI) and Prologis, a ULI sustaining member company and an Icon sponsor for the meeting.

During a press conference this morning, President Jimmy Carter announced that he will begin treatment for melanoma. The thoughts and prayers of the entire Habitat for Humanity family are with President and Mrs. Carter at this time. During a press conference this morning, President Jimmy Carter announced that he will begin treatment for melanoma. The thoughts and prayers of the entire Habitat for Humanity family are with President and Mrs. Carter at this time

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its mid-year ranking of commercial and multifamily mortgage servicers' volumes as of June 30, 2015. At the top of the list of firms is Wells Fargo Bank N.A. with $484.2 billion in U.S. master and primary servicing, followed by PNC Real Estate/Midland Loan Services with $465.8 billion, Berkadia Commercial Mortgage LLC with $230.4 billion, KeyBank N.A. with $189.9 billion, and GEMSA Loan Services, L.P. with $98.9 billion

Existing-home sales steadily increased for the third consecutive month in July, while stubbornly low inventory levels and rising prices are likely to blame for sales to first-time buyers falling to their lowest share since January, according to the National Association of Realtors

Ever since GRESB was started, performance indicator data from real estate portfolios has been part of its assessment. Due to the importance of this Aspect in the GRESB Survey and the impact it has on participants’ organizations in how they structure their data collection processes in order to be able to report the requested data, it’s a frequently discussed topic amongst GRESB participants, their consultants, property managers, data providers, as well as their investors.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency, or FHFA, released its rule establishing affordable housing goals for 2015 to 2017. The affordable housing goals are a primary measure of Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s success in fulfilling their charter obligations to provide access to credit in all communities. Julia Gordon, Senior Director of Housing and Consumer Finance at the Center for American Progress, issued the following statement in response to FHFA’s announcement

In response to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) release of its final affordable housing goal rule for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for 2015-2017, National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) President and CEO John Taylor made the following statement

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) issued a final rule setting affordable housing goals for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the GSEs). Affordable housing goals are meant to ensure that people in lower-wealth communities have access to homeownership and affordable rental housing.[1] FHFA announced that its' single-family, low-income home purchase goal for 2015-2017 would be set at a conservative 24 percent, and that the dual-part market and benchmark test that determines if goals are met would remain unchanged.

According to new research by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS), stronger building codes and standards, along with more stringent requirements for inspections, building permits, and contractor licensing, all have contributed to safer, stronger roofs in coastal Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, since Katrina tore into the region 10 years ago

With a closing average of 83 units and $16 million in transaction volume in 2015, the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Association's® (NAHREP) Top 250 Latino Agents have been invited to receive special recognition at NAHREP's 2015 National Convention & Latin Music Festival to be held at the downtown Chicago Hilton September 20 – 22, 2015.

National Institute of Building Sciences will conduct a representative hearing on productivity and the workforce on September 25, 2015, in Washington, D.C. The hearing, which is being sponsored by Autodesk and supported by the International Code Council, will provide an opportunity for representatives from the planning, design, construction, operations, ownership, finance, insurance, regulatory, manufacturing, academia and other segments of the U.S. building industry to speak about the challenges they face and offer potential solutions.

Mortgage applications increased 3.6 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending August 14, 2015

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has announced the recipients of its annual LEED for Homes Awards, recognizing projects, developers and homebuilders that have demonstrated outstanding leadership and innovation in residential green building. The awards are given to outstanding multi- and single-family residential and affordable housing projects as well as builders and developers