Monday, January 7, 2013

Saturday Jan 12th Help Needed!

This Saturday Jan. 12th the HBA of Greenville and Habitat for Humanity of Greenville need your help! Your HBA has partnered with Habitat of Greenville to rehabilitate and weatherize two homes in the area. With donations from HBA of Greenville members, we have been able to help two families  have a more comfortable home.
On Saturday we will be working at 25 Cone Crest to clean up the home and put the finishing touches on it.
If you would like to help please call Crystal Yanes at the HBA office 864-254-0133 for more information. There will also be another volunteer opportunity scheduled in February for the 2nd home.

Please see the list of donations for this home made possible by members of the HBA. Thank you to each of you who donated to this home!


Exterior HVAC unit- Eastergard HVAC, Inc
        Hot water heater - Lowe's Home Improvement
        Cleaning supplies - The Home Depot
        Landscaping materials:
        Thirty bales of pine needles -Willis Landscaping
        Two gallons of weed spray -Willis Landscaping
        Two 50’ hoses - The Home Depot
        Two oscillating sprinklers  The Home Depot
Landscaping completed by Willis Landscaping
        Roofing materials:
                   Seven rolls of 30 lb. felt Stock Building Supply
                  One 50’ roll of aluminum flashing Stock Building Supply
               Eight pieces of 4’ ridge vent Stock Building Supply


The connection between referrals and your HBA of Greenville

With 2013 here it is a fresh start to a new year and with that comes reevaluations of our budgets, our time, and our commitments. So, you may ask yourself what should I put more into to reap more for my company. The answer is - your HBA of Greenville! Seriously, did you know that there are many consumers and contractors that call or email the HBA every week asking for referrals?

Case-in-point, today we had a call from a consumer looking for a stair contractor.  We got to work finding all the stair companies in our membership; there are four.  But only one popped immediately into the mind of the staff member handling the consumer request.  That one stair contractor rolled off the tongue oh- so- quickly because they are visible in the HBA, not as a Board Member or because they sponsor our programs, but because they attend events and are SEEN, making it easy for staff and other members to remember their company name, owners names, and their faces. For the other stair companies we looked you up and sent your business contact information to the consumer as well, but we sure would like to get to know you better.

So as you plan your year and your commitments, please make sure that you take the time to reap the benefits of your investment in your HBA. There are many opportunities to serve on a committee, sponsor an event, or just attend an event.

Below are some upcoming events you should consider attending:
General Membership Meeting @ TD Center- 1/30/213 @ 11 a.m.
Boxed Lunch w/ Builder- 2/12/2013 @ 12p.m.- reservation required as space is limited
Builder Breakfast- 02/21/2013 7:30 (event exclusively for builders)
Southern Home and Garden Show @ TD Center- 3/1-3/2013 (sponsorship and booth space available)



Greenville housing market improves for the fourteenth consecutive month

For the eighth consecutive month the Greenville Metro area is been listed on NAHB's Improving Markets Index.  Because a market must improve for six months before being listed on the index, that means Greenville's housing market has been improving for 14 consecutive months.  In addition to Greenville, Anderson and Spartanburg both were added to the index in recent months.  Other improving markets in South Carolina include Columbia, Florence, and Charleston.

In the latest sign of a burgeoning recovery in U.S. housing markets, the number of metropolitan areas on the National Association of Home Builders/First American Improving Markets Index (IMI) rose for a fifth consecutive month to 242 in January. This is up from 201 markets listed as improving in December, and includes entrants from 48 states and the District of Columbia.

The IMI identifies metro areas that have shown improvement from their respective troughs in housing permits, employment and house prices for at least six consecutive months. A total of 47 new metros were added to the list and six were dropped from it this month. Newly added metros include such geographically diverse locations as Los Angeles, Calif.; Auburn, Ala.; Des Moines, Iowa; Nashville, Tenn.; Richmond, Va.; and Cleveland, Ohio.

“We created the improving markets list in September of 2011 to spotlight individual metros where -- contrary to the national headlines -- housing markets were on the mend,” noted NAHB Chairman Barry Rutenberg, a home builder from Gainesville, Fla. “Today, 242 out of 361 metros nationwide appear on that list, including representatives from almost every state in the country. The story is no longer about exceptions to the rule, but about the growing breadth of the housing recovery even as overly strict mortgage requirements hold back the pace of improvement.”

“The IMI has almost doubled in the past two months as stronger demand during prime home buying season boosted prices across a broader number of metropolitan areas,” noted NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe. “Similar home price gains, and hence the IMI, may be tempered in the future as we see data from typically slower months for home sales.”

“Potential home buyers should be encouraged by the positive momentum in home prices, permitting and employment that is increasingly evident in not just isolated housing markets, but a broadening swath of the country,” added Kurt Pfotenhauer, vice chairman of First American Title Insurance Company.

The IMI is designed to track housing markets throughout the country that are showing signs of improving economic health. The index measures three sets of independent monthly data to get a mark on the top improving Metropolitan Statistical Areas. The three indicators that are analyzed are employment growth from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, housing price appreciation from Freddie Mac and single-family housing permit growth from the U.S. Census Bureau. NAHB uses the latest available data from these sources to generate a list of improving markets. A metropolitan area must see improvement in all three measures for at least six consecutive months following those measures’ respective troughs before being included on the improving markets list.

A complete list of all 242 metropolitan areas currently on the IMI, and separate breakouts of metros newly added to or dropped from the list in January, is available at www.nahb.org/imi. A state-by-state listing of metro areas on the list is also available at: www.nahb.org/improvingmarkets.