Waco’s White-Hot Housing Market

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Mike Copeland of Waco Tribune online reports that the Waco housing market is white-hot. January and February of 2015 saw a 20% jump in home sales over 2014’s numbers, and many homes sold were on the market for less than a week.

Schroder notes that the economic improvements have led Texans to “feel we’re out of the recession.” Solid employment with several Capterpillar manufacturing facilities and the SpaceX plant in nearby McGregor are big draws for transplants seeking relocation to Waco. The new McLane Stadium at Baylor University, and the development of Lake Brazos into a premiere recreation destination have also contributed to the rise in Waco’s national profile.

Kathy Schroeder, vice president of residential services at Coldwell Banker Jim Stewart Realtors, acknowledges the popularity of HGTV’s popular “Fixer Upper” program for some of the demand. The show tracks the home remodeling adventures of Waco entrepreneurs Chip and Joanna Gaines, which has inspired people nationwide to inquire about the available real estate in Waco.

In its March 6 report, Realtor.com listed Waco as the Number 1 fastest-rising housing market nationwide, beating out Boulder, Colorado; Dallas/Fort Worth/Arlington; Hartford, Connecticut.; San Francisco/Oakland, California; and Fort Wayne, Indiana, for the honor. Rankings are determined by the ratio of listing views to number of listings on Realtor.com. Schroeder also credits “Fixer Upper” for some of the increased website traffic.

Though some see the spike in interest as part of a national trend in improving real estate markets, Trammell Kelly, a residential sales specialist at Kelly Realtors, believes that Waco is finally being discovered as a solid, enjoyable community for folks looking to settle down. “Our quality of life and affordability come to mind,” he said. “We’re smack in the middle between Dallas and Austin, and we have assets such as Baylor University, Texas State Technical College and McLennan Community College. Waco is unique, and people are realizing that.”

Whatever the draw, Kelly is very pleased with the currently brisk pace of the local housing market. “I’m seeing people from Temple and Austin making trips up here to buy property,” said Kelly, who added that homes in the upper $100,000 to $200,000 range are popular.” The market is purring along well ahead of the busy summer sales season. “If anybody is thinking about selling, now is the time,” said Kelly.

Georgia Seeks to Ban LEED in State Projects

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Last Friday, a bill passed in the Georgia congress that would effectively ban state-owned construction projects from employing the LEED green building standard. This move is a serious blow to the major cities of Savannah and Atlanta, which have seen tremendous market growth in LEED-based development. The bill requires that only green certification programs which deem Georgia-grown timber as sustainable can be used for state-owned buildings. LEED’s current forestry standards, created by the internationally-adopted Forest Stewardship Council, do not include timber produced in Georgia among the list of sustainably-produced products.

Georgia’s antipathy towards LEED is somewhat perplexing in that of the 110 points allotted to each project for LEED certification, only 1 is granted for FSC-approved lumber. Projects need a minimum of 40 points to be LEED-certified, with 50 points garnering the bronze level, 60-79 points garnering the gold level, and 80+ points garnering the platinum level, which is the highest LEED certification. It is entirely possible to gain the 40 minimum necessary points without FSC-approved timber products. For example, combining water conservation, energy optimization, energy-production, building life-cycle consideration, and daylight incorporation measures with the use of LEED-certified project leaders would be adequate to gain the points needed for basic LEED certification.

The bill’s opponents argue that state-owned buildings can still achieve LEED certification by using local lumber or alternate materials. This has been the rule since the governor-issued executive order in 2012. Nonetheless, Senator Dean Burke, R-Bainbridge, claims that LEED “The program basically discriminates against 97 percent of the wood grown in Georgia.” Bill co-sponsor, Representative Mike Cheokas, R-Americus, describes the measure as “a fairness and ‘protect Georgia jobs bill,’ to be honest with you.”

Green design expert Lloyd Alter reports that the lack of FSC approval is actually perceived by Georgia businessmen as an unpleasant reflection upon the Georgia lumber industry rather than as an actual impediment to business. Much of the pine lumber in Georgia is grown on plantations and destined to become pulpwood. While the FSC has provisions for lumber plantations under Principle 10, it “promotes the restoration and conservation of natural forests,” in part by placing limits on clear-cutting to “ensure that forest managers provide adequate habitat for species associated with large trees or decaying trees and dead wood. The expectation applies to all stands, silvicultural systems, and harvest objectives.”

There are a number of reasons that the FSC will not register the bulk of Georgia timber as sustainable. The FSC prefers lumber harvested from naturally mixed woodlands. Provision 10 measures aside, the FSC discourages the sort of plantations and clear-cutting employed by Georgia lumber producers because they are not sustainable practices. FSC also addresses labor relations within the company, how the community’s interests and welfare are preserved, and how much timber can be clearcut at a time. Extraordinary market conditions notwithstanding, the maximum limit is 40 acres. Georgia pine plantations cannot profit in 40-acre increments; neither could they enjoy the advantage of rapid tree maturity spurred by forced harvesting of vast swaths over an extended period of time. In short, the FSC expects trees to be treated like a part of the forest ecosystem, and Georgia timber plantations treat trees like a crop, harvested by temporary workers, that has no bearing on the local community’s ecosystem.

The bill, which proponents expect will shortly become law, is part of a larger effort to encourage contractors to build with locally-produced wood. Construction Dive’s Sharon O’Malley reports that only 32,000 of the state’s 20 million acres of lumber meet the FSC standard. 4.7 million have been certified under other standards which do not meet the FSC requirements. Although over 100 of the state’s buildings are LEED-certified, the bill requires state agencies seeking green building certifications to use Georgia-sourced lumber that qualifies under alternative building standards which register non-FSC lumber as sustainable.

SupplyPro Creators Launch SKU Database to Automate Home Construction Supply Chain

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Last Friday, Hyphen Solutions, LLC announced the launch of their new residential item master database, “SkuSphere.” The new SkuSphere catalog has been designed to easily integrate into existing bidding, sales, procurement, selections, CAD, and enterprise-planning systems. SkuSphere will automate the integration of product, takeoff, and SKU-level details on all appliances, equipment, materials, and product assemblies that are specifically utilized in the residential construction industry.

The idea for SkuSphere actually began ten years ago with the debut of SupplyPro, which Hyphen designed to integrate homebuilders’ back-office systems with their trade partners’. The two-way communication portal enabled suppliers and builders to collaborate regardless of the specific project management system a builder uses. The need for a coherent master item catalog shared by all parties in the supply chain became glaringly obvious within the first few months.

The integration of automated purchasing functionality with the other back-office functions was impeded by the lack of SKU-level information on system-generated purchase orders. In order to complete supply requisitions, builders and suppliers have had to reference and enter the data by hand for each form. The confusing plethora of SKUs available has left builders and suppliers struggling to keep their master master item lists current and consistent. SkuSphere solves this problem by providing coordinated master list data to all supply chain participants–free of charge.

According to Hyphen Solutions chair David B. Deniger, “this industry-wide, free catalog should help bridge the supply chain impediments which arise from conflicts in nomenclature among thousands of manufacturers, distributors, installers and builders.” The catalog, which will be shared across all parties in the supply chain, “will add clarity and reduce transaction costs for builders, installers, distributors and manufacturers, while providing specificity of items purchased and installed.”

“SkuSphere will enhance our SupplyPro Connect customers’ fulfillment,” said Felix Vasquez, President and CTO of Hyphen Solutions, LLC. Hyphen Solutions order fulfillment currently benefits from “direct integration [with] customer builders’ ERP into vendor order entry systems [featuring] enhanced mapping of PO line item detail,” and “as the residential supply chain adopts the data feeds from the new catalog, buyer and seller technologies will perfectly integrate to include mapped manufacturer, distributor, installer, and builder nomenclature into a shareable item master complete with retail or wholesale descriptions.”

Linking the product specifications to bidding, procurement, and fulfillment systems will eliminate manual processing, thus “allowing construction automation to take a giant step forward,” adds Vasquez, a move that is in keeping with the developments in other manufacturing sectors,” adds Vasquez.

SupplyPro’s 35,000 users enjoy real-time scheduling, collaboration, and purchasing functions that include bidding tools, change orders, inspection, document sharing, electronic payment, lein releases, and warranty tracking. In 2014, SupplyPro handled more than 200,000 tasks per day and distributed over 15 million purchase orders for residential construction totaling in excess of $15 billion.

How to Build the Construction Workforce Through School Partnerships

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In an effort to meet the growing demand for skilled construction labor, Mortenson Construction Corporation has forged partnerships with local high schools to provide career guidance, job training, and educational experiences for youths attending schools located near its regional offices. These partnerships are vital to ending the drastic skilled labor shortages currently faced by the construction industry.

Mortenson Construction executive Joanna Slominski has spent years building partnerships between her company and the local schools. Slominski has been a personal mentor to several students, organized familiarization trips to construction sites, created hands-on learning opportunities for students, and facilitaed job-shadowing opportunities for students who are interested in the skilled trades. In her article for Prairie Business, Slominski says that ensuring positive, productive partnerships has meant developing a strong, 5-point outreach and implementation strategy.

The first step is to analyze what your business can offer the school and what they need/want in order to formulate a mutually beneficial goal. If you have technological expertise, willing mentors on staff, or an acute sense of what your industry demands from entry-level employees, look for ways to incorporate those assets into the educational curriculum. Introducing students to the building trades is a good start, but helping them understand that cutting-edge technology and universally-sought management skills are part of the business is also important. For example, Mortenson shows students how Oculus Rift technology, usually identified with video games, is used in the design and project management aspects of construction technology.

After you discover what your company has to offer, it’s time to locate schools to partner with. Decide which institutions would benefit from your business’ strengths. Do you work with high schools or focus primarily on the local trade schools? Examine the school’s mission statement and goals to make sure that they align with your company’s core values.

Thirdly, fostering direct, honest communication with potential partners from the outset will help establish mutual objectives and expectations. Before you begin, each party should understand what obligations must be met. Be clear about how much human capital, time, and materials your business can spare for the partnership. In forging the partnership, understand that it entails sharing your business’ intellectual property with the next generation of skilled trades people, to help them learn the business. Have clear guidelines about mutual goals and the resources you are contributing to the schools, and understand your company’s ability to make the necessary assessments and readjustments that may periodically be required.

After that, build a system for getting and incorporating feedback from students and instructors into your partnership from the outset. The school’s leadership may be responsible for committing to the partnership, but the students you are teaching and the instructors you are collaborating with should also be heard. Take their feedback as seriously as you do the administration’s. If students aren’t engaging with your program, be willing to reassess what you are offering and how it is being presented.

Finally, integrate these educational partnerships into your working culture. In order to succeed, educational partnerships must have the support of the entire company. Your employees should know about your organization’s various partnerships, and that they might be called upon to interact with students in an educational support role. This might range from key executives making presentations to student groups, to staff participation in a “career day” even hosted at your company.

Partnerships with educational institutions are a responsibility and a privilege for businesses that choose to create them, but the benefits for the company and the industry are enormous. Investing the time and resources to partner with schools will ensure that the construction trades workforce has well-trained, strong, leadership in years to come.

Construction Boom Soon to Hit Palm Beach County

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Biz Journal’s Brian Bandell reports that two residential projects and one commercial venture are up for review with the Palm Beach County planning and zoning board. The largest proposal has a 37-acre site at the northeast corner of Lake Worth Road and Lyons Road being rezoned for 184 homes. The Diocese of Palm Beach, Herbert F Kahlert, and Lyons Petroleum currently own the four parcels comprising the site. A lone gas station is the only structure currently occupying the space.

Approval for a 75,280-square-foot retail complex and 3,820-square-foot financial building has already been secured. The current application indicates that the developer hopes to take advantage of the current residential market conditions and wishes to increase the allowable residential density from two units per acre to five.

The Miami Beach-based Woodwind 2007 LLC, managed by Grant T. Cardone, filed an application to expand the Wellington Club apartment complex. They will construct two additional buildings of 24 units apiece on the last vacant part of the community’s lot. The community already has 202 units, a clubhouse, and a daycare center on its 36.3 acre property.

The Hardail Sibia-managed HDRS LLC, based in Boca Raton, seeks to construct a commercial project at Woolbright Road, slightly west of Jog Road. HRDS has proposed 20,00 square feet of medical office space and 19,530 square feet of general commercial space. They acquired the 3.6 acres out of foreclosure in 2013, for $1.14 million. Ths project will join the two other medical facilities Sibia owns in the area.

Subcontractors seeking residential or commercial construction job leads on these project should check out HBW’s building permit activity reports to learn more. HBW serves builders in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Texas, and Oklahoma. In addition to our Building Trend Activity for Residential Construction Reports, HBW can create a number of custom reports for any need you might have. We also offer exclusive White Paper Reports to help you market your business. White papers start by giving an overview of the trends in your area and then advice on how to turn your weekly building permit information subscription into successful business leads. To show you how we can help your business succeed, HBW is glad to provide you with complementary building data report or one of our specialized White Paper Reports. Contact us today and start making your business more profitable!

Huntsville’s Torch Remains Bright Through $10 Million Expansion

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Huntsville-based IT & Engineering giant Torch Technologies will be expanding their property and their operations through 2016. CEO Bill Roark says that Torch has wanted to expand for the last five years, and that the conditions are finally right to act upon those plans. In an interview with AL.com and WHNT News 19, Torch announced a 9-18 month long construction project to renovate existing facilities, and develop a new headquarters plus conference center.

“With the wires running across the floor and the dated facilities that we have, it’ll be nice to have a new modern facility that we can have meeting rooms and host those customer meetings in,” says Roark, “It will help us attract employees to be a part of the company and help with our image in the community and with the customer base.”

Torch Technologies, along with the newly-formed affiliate Freedom Real Estate & Capital recently acquired office buildings at 4090 South Memorial Parkway and 4035 Chris Drive, along with 12 acres of surrounding property. The companies hired Matheny Goldmon Architects, Turner Construction, and 4 Site to develop their expansion project.

The 40,000-square-foot vacant facilities at South Memorial Pkwy and Chris Drive will be renovated. A 10-000 square-foot conference center will be built interconnecting the two facilities, and the combined property will be called The Freedom Center. After renovations, a portion of the Chris Drive facility will be leased to area businesses, with the rest occupied by Torch and Freedom. The accompanying acreage has enough room to build a three-story, 54,600-square-foot facility in the none-too-distant future.

The decision to stay at the Chris Drive location was not a foregone conclusion. “By staying here in south Huntsville, we’ll be keeping this campus from going dark,” admits Roark. “If we had moved to Research Park, this building (on Chris Drive), the building next door and a large portion of the building across the street would be empty and essentially not operating.”

Torch was compelled to stay by the nearly $2.1 million incentive package granted to the project by the city of Huntsville, the State of Alabama, and the Tennessee Valley Authority. Tax abatements and grants will aid the further development of the property.

Torch president John Watson says this expansion is a milestone for Torch’s business growth goals. “We felt like this is really going to meet all of our needs, gives us the best location we can get in terms of the customer, has nice proximity to downtown Huntsville for those folks that are coming outside of town,” he said. “And we are doing it for a discount below where we could do it in other areas in town.”

The formal groundbreaking for this $10-$12 million project took place on Friday, March 20, at 4035 Chris Drive, the location that the 12-year-old employee-owned company has occupied for over a decade. Along with the expansion comes 150 new jobs.

Subcontractors seeking commercial construction job leads on the Torch Technologies project should check out HBW’s building permit activity reports to learn more. HBW serves builders in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Texas, and Oklahoma. In addition to our Building Trend Activity for Residential Construction Reports, HBW can create a number of custom reports for any need you might have. We also offer exclusive White Paper Reports to help you market your business. White papers start by giving an overview of the trends in your area and then advice on how to turn your weekly building permit information subscription into successful business leads. To show you how we can help your business succeed, HBW is glad to provide you with complementary building data report or one of our specialized White Paper Reports. Contact us today and start making your business more profitable!

Skyscraper Design that Casts No Shadow

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As urbanization intensifies and the liveable spaces in cities become smaller and smaller, the only option developers have is to build upwards. Each time a building rises higher, the ground below becomes more and more overcast, making for a light-deprived and unhappy populace.

London, for example will become home to a staggering 250 new skyscrapers within the next five years. Pondering this scenario, NBBJ architects in London wondered whether they couldn’t find a way to build skyscrapers that cast smaller shadows. As Wired reports, the firm successfully discovered a building design that cuts a building’s shadow footprint by 60%.

Through the wonders of computer modeling, NBBJ stumbled upon a design which uses a pair of buildings, “one of which works like a gigantic, curved mirror. The glass surface of the northernmost building reflects light down into the shadow cast by its southern partner.” The curvature allows the sun to follow the shadow throughout the day.

“The relationship between the sun and shadow is the relationship between the two buildings,” says Christian Coop, NBBJ’s design director. This reflected light will be baffled and diffused, unlike the concentrated “walkie scorchie” beams cast by 20 Fenchurch Street that torment passersby and are powerful enough to fry an egg.

NBBJ, one of Fast Company’s 10 most innovative architectural firms, used the powerful Rhinoceros modeling program to come up with this design. Coop’s team plugged the footprints for offices and living space into the program and then told it to maximize the amount of light reflected onto the ground. The software analyzes each shape and then generates a series of preferred options. “Some are bonkers,” admits Coop, whose team adjusted the requirements for living space on the lower levels to arrive at the current design.

The design calls for buildings that are narrower on the lower level but widen and curve out as the stories rise higher. The design, which the firm has proposed for the Greenwich Peninsular site, reduces the shadow between the buildings by 60%, which will allow for a bright, green space between the buildings where city residents can congregate.

According to Coop, NBBJ’s ultimate design goal is “improving the quality of our urban environment… finding a way in which we can have the tall buildings we need without losing natural light on the areas below. The design ensures that the area between the towers is bright and pleasant, so is more likely to be used as a public space.” NBBJ’s design innovation might even be useful in cities like New York and Chicago, which have resisted building more skyscrapers for fear that they would severely overshadow Central Park.

Viirt Revolutionizes the Roofing Industry

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Imagine a streamlined roofing process that saves homeowners thousands in labor and materials costs, cuts project completion time by at least 20%, gives clients insider access to project review, and can be managed remotely via the internet. Ryan Pendell of Silicon Prairie News reports that this dream-like scenario has been made a reality by career roofing contractor and tech entrepreneur Josh Davis through the Viirt online project management platform. Viirt has just gained $900,000 in venture capital from Dundee Venture Capital and a small group of angel investors.

According to Digital Journal, “Viirt is an online project management company that will generate a formal roofing bid in one minute or less that is within 5% accuracy.” Viirt will “streamline the overall process from start to finish and introduce ‘roofing insider’ tools to homeowners that have previously not been available to the public.”

Viirt accomplishes this amazing feat by leveraging the internet and aerial satellite technology. Viirt locates the client’s home and pinpoints precise roof measurements, which process happens much more quickly than the customary manual roof estimation process. Viirt also takes advantage of bulk materials pricing and passes those savings on to homeowners. Projects ordinarily costing $13,000 can be done for $3,000-$4,000 less.

Davis, Viirt’s current CEO, explains that current communications technology enables Viirt to “execute most project management functions remotely and automatically, especially on the front end…I’ve been in the roofing industry all my life and have done every job possible. Now, I’m excited to modernize the industry by adding a little bit of today’s technology to it.”

Marketing expenses, huge commissions for salespeople, and expensive materials significantly increase the roofing costs homeowners typically pay. The Viirt platform’s lower materials prices, quick and efficient roof estimate process, and efficient real-time communication saves homeowners 20%-30% per job. Because they use a formal vetting process when signing up local contractors, Viirt also guarantees the contractor’s work and secures payments until the roof installation is completed.

All of which means that Viirt’s virtues go beyond the nuts-and-bolts of the roofing process. According to Davis, Viirt is “creating much needed transparency in the roofing industry by putting the homeowner back in control of the entire roofing process. We’re boosting consumer confidence.”

Design-Build: A Quick Explanation

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The process for residential remodeling has evolved significantly over the last decade. One major effect of this change has been the rise of the more cost-conscious design-build firms that are as involved in the actual construction as they are in the designing and planning of the remodels.  Residential construction professionals looking to branch out into the remodeling business should keep in mind that these days, they are as likely to be hired by an architect or design firm as by a general contractor.

Design-Bid-Build

Prior to the housing bubble crash of 2007-2009, residential remodeling was an involved yet leisurely process of drawing up the plans, submitting them for bids to three or four contractors, and then doing the build. This model allowed homeowners to dream big and worry about negotiating more reasonable prices later. But it also often led to seriously over-budget bids,which were usually handled one of two ways: phone the bank to arrange a higher credit line—which is what most people did, or have the designer scale back the plan and draw up another expensive set of documents—which rarely happened. The design-bid-build process worked well until the days of easy credit were ended by the housing crash. At this point, homeowners started looking for a more cost-effective process.

Design-Build

Today, homeowners are likely to begin with a firm budget and a few ideas. Their next step is to contact a company that offers both the design and the contracting services in-house. Homeowners then collaborate with the designer to craft a remodel that fits their needs, fulfills, their hopes, and stays under budget. Because there is no bidding and re-planning phase, construction can begin as soon as the plans are drawn up. Design-build projects tend to move more quickly and project completion takes much less time.

When money’s no object, homeowners gladly opt for the design-bid-build process. But for the majority of budget-conscious clients, the design-build process is their preferred option. Residential construction subcontractors seeking jobs in the lucrative remodeling market need to network with the designers and architects who have spearheaded the design-build revolution.

San Antonio Home Sales Stay Strong Through March

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The 1,700 homes sold during February provide another bellwether that the San Antonio housing market is on the upswing. Katie Burke reports in the San Antonio Business Journal that “following a February housing boom, the San Antonio Board of Realtors recorded a 14 percent year-over-year increase in homes sold…Inventory remained low at 3.6 months and days on market dipped to 74 days.” As of March 1st, almost 2,000 sales were still pending, an increase of 21.5 percent over 2014, which provided a very strong lead-in for the month.

Mary Ann Jeffers, chairman of the board for SABOR, says that “We continue to see unprecedented growth in the San Antonio housing market in just about every area…Nationally, improved buyer demand at the beginning of 2015 pushed pending home sales in January up and buyers closed on homes at a swift pace despite tight inventory.”

A 6.4 percent jump in existing home sales—roughly 5.26 million homes—is expected for 2015. This increase runs parallel to the rise in the national median existing-home price, which is projected to gain a 5 percent increase. The past few monts have seen San Antonio’s housing market gain traction. Low interest rates, economic growth, and high job availability have set the stage for a real estate renaissance. with the market picking up, home prices have risen. The current average-per-square-foot cost of $101 is an increase of 5 percent over 2013’s cost.

The economic and job growth experienced in San Antonio has also driven the construction of mid-and-upper-range homes. Sales of homes costing between $200k and $500k rose 7 percent over 2014, and averaged 40.7 percent of February’s sales. Just over half of the market was comprised of homes priced lower than $200k. Although homes costing more than $500k only accounted for 3.5 percent of home sales for February, sales of higher-end properties have begun to pick up steam. Key to this momentum is the spike in residential developement happening in downtown San Antonio. As income and employment availability increase, so too has the demand for walkable, mixed-use urban living in the urban core.