Incoming NAHB Chairman Rick Judson, speaker at meeting on 11/8/2012.

 
Rick Judson will be speaking at the General Membership Meeting on Nov. 8th. Here is some information from his NAHB biography. For the full biography please click here.
Rick Judson, a Charlotte, N.C.-based home builder with over 35 years of experience in the building industry, is the Chairman-elect of the Board of the more than 140,000 member National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).
Judson is the owner of Evergreen Development Group in Charlotte, and is a successful builder and developer with several decades of experience in land development and construction of single-family, multifamily and commercial projects. Judson has been active in the NAHB leadership structure at the local, state and national levels throughout his career. He first served on NAHB’s Board of Directors in 1979, and he has been a member of the NAHB Executive Board since 2002. He has twice served as NAHB State Representative from North Carolina and as NAHB National Area Chairman representing North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.
He has chaired some of NAHB’s most important and influential committees, subcommittees and task forces, including Budget and Finance, Investment and Public Affairs. In 2008, he chaired the NAHB Housing Finance Task Force, which developed association policy relating to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Previously, Rick served as 2004 President of the North Carolina Home Builders Association and was named its Associate of the Year in 1988. Judson began his career in the building industry by purchasing his family’s insulating contracting business, and, by acquiring similar firms across the country, he steadily built a company that at the time of its sale was one of the nation’s largest and most successful insulating contracting operations. During that period, he served as President of the Insulation Contractors of America. After that, Rick turned his full attention to building and real estate development. In the early 1980s, he established a building company that specialized in custom homes and eventually evolved into building entry level homes. He later expanded the scope of that business to include a larger selection of price ranges, and built both multifamily and commercial projects as
well.
Judson attended East Carolina University on a football and track scholarship and was inducted into the school’s “Wall of Fame” for noteworthy contributions to the community and university by a letterman. He graduated with Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees in Business and History in 1970. Judson also performed post-graduate studies at the Wharton School of Finance, University of Pennsylvania and at the School of Industrial Management at Clemson University.

NAHB's fall construction forecast provides an upbeat tone.

Chief Economist David Crowe and his fellow presenters at NAHB's fall construction forecasting event carried a mostly upbeat tone. The focus of the event was regarding the housing industry and the evolution of housing finance policies. The speakers noted that the most recent data seems to be "in sync" with the notion that a recovery is truly underway. Much of the multifamily and single family remodeling has made considerable progress toward returning to  pre-down turn levels. Stating that remodeling is already back to 100% of production relative to 2000-2002 spending and multifamily is at 64%, and single family is around 40% of normal production. However, Crowe noted that weak job growth, credit issues, and appraisal problems continue to slow the pace of recovery. This forecast is contingent on Congress coming up with a solution to avoid the "fiscal cliff" posed by mandated government spending cuts.  
This year, Crowe is projecting that single-family starts will finish this year at 528,000 units, then rise 26% to 665,000 units in 2013 and another 30% to 865,000 units in 2014. Meanwhile, he expects multifamily starts to finish 2012 with 224,000 units, followed by a modest rise to 238,000 units in 2013 and another gain to 275,000 units in 2014. 

The longest to recover will be the local markets, because those were the hardest hit in the housing downturn. 

Areas that are at "normal" housing production levels include North Dakota, Washington, D.C., and parts of Wyoming and Texas. 

For more information or to read the full article please see NAHB Monday Morning.  

Best states for business- South Carolina is #2

Area Development Magazine has come up with the rankings for new and expanding businesses in the United States and South Carolina is ranked No.2. On the heels of Texas, South Carolina has moved up from fourth place in 2011 in part because of growing exports and $3.4 billion dollars worth of investments. Some of those investments include Bridgestone America's $1.2 billion expansion, BMW's expansion- bringing their investment in the state to almost $6 billion. There is also Michelin North America's investment of nearly $1billion in plants around the state creating 500 jobs.
So, you might ask your self why is South Carolina so appealing? Well, South Carolina offers great training/ development programs, competitive labor, and a willing workforce with the advanced skill sets needed for new operations. Editors of the magazine pointed out that Ready SC , South Carolina's workforce development program, has trained more than 250,000 workers for 2,000 companies.

More GREAT things happening in South Carolina: Ranked No.2 for overall business climate, No.3 for infrastructure and global access, and tied for No. 5 in leading the economic recovery.

For more information on this article please see GSA Business Journal or Area Development Magazine

Residential building permits rise 30.3 percent in the Upstate

Residential building permits in the Upstate rose 30.3 percent in the first three quarters of this year, a boost attributed to job growth. The Upstate had 2,611 building permits issued during the first nine months of this year, compared to the 2,004 issued during the same period last year, according to Knoxville-based The Market Edge, which tracks residential and commercial building trends in the Southeast.

Nationwide, building permits were up 11.6 percent last month -- the highest rise in four years, according to HUD and the U.S. Census Bureau.

Read the entire article at Greenville Online.