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According to the Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA) Quarterly Survey of Commercial/Multifamily Mortgage Bankers Originations, second quarter 2017 commercial and multifamily mortgage loan originations were 20 percent higher than during the same period last year and 28 percent higher than the first quarter of 2017.

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) officially opened online registration today for the 2018 NAHB International Builders’ Show® (IBS), the largest annual light construction trade show in the world

Now in its 37th year, NAHB’s national sales and marketing awards program, The Nationals?, is open for entries. Honoring the best in new-home sales, marketing and design, The Nationals competition pays tribute to superior new-home sales and marketing achievements by individual sales and marketing professionals, home builders and associates, and local sales and marketing councils.

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) today called on Congress to pass the Affordable Housing Credit Improvements Act of 2017 (S. 548), legislation that would promote the construction of sorely needed rental apartments and help alleviate the nation’s affordable housing crisis

The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) released the “Reforming the Mortgage Interest Deduction: How Tax Reform Can Help End Homelessness and Housing Poverty” report today calling for Congress and the Trump administration to use mortgage interest deduction (MID) reform to end homelessness and housing poverty in America.

U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson today announced an additional $178.5 million to help hard-hit areas in several states recover from severe flooding that occurred in 2015 and 2016. The grants announced today are provided through HUD’s Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) Program.

Construction spending in June declined from May but increased from a year ago as public investment shrank for nearly every type of structure, according to an analysis of new government data by the Associated General Contractors of America. Association officials cautioned that the significant declines in public-sector construction spending come at a time when much of the nation’s public infrastructure is deteriorating due to age or overuse.

While many design professionals in the U.S. building industry use building information modeling tools, many people still require and rely upon computer-aided design (CAD)-based, two-dimensional drawings for project information delivery. In 2014, the developers of the United States National CAD Standard® (NCS)—The American Institute of Architects (AIA), Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) and National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS)—released NCS Version 6 (V6), which includes a new section on implementing BIM.

After declining for three straight months, pending home sales reversed course in June as all major regions, except for the Midwest, saw an increase in contract activity, according to the National Association of Realtors®

Over 40 percent more wind power projects are under construction or advanced development in America than at this time last year, according to second-quarter results released today by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) today commended bipartisan legislation introduced in the House that would help small businesses and boost housing affordability by clarifying under the law what constitutes a joint employer. The standard of joint employment was vastly expanded by a 2015 decision issued by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in which it adopted a broad and ambiguous new definition

The Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) International, in collaboration with research firm Kingsley Associates, recently released its 2017 Office Experience Exchange Report (Office EER) and 2017 Industrial Experience Exchange Report (Industrial EER).

The Alliance to Save Energy released the following statement from President Kateri Callahan in response to the U.S. House of Representatives passing the Make America Secure Appropriations Act (H.R. 3219)

Sales of newly built, single-family homes in June inched up 0.8 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 610,000 units from a downwardly revised May reading, according to newly released data by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Census Bureau.

Michael Bennett, vice president of the Cianbro Cos., Pittsfield, Maine, today told Congress that industry-driven training programs should play a bigger role in government efforts to close the workforce/skills gap that has left 500,000 construction jobs unfilled in the United States today. Bennett testified on behalf of Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) before the U.S. House Committee on Education and Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development to call for support for President Trump’s recent executive order expanding apprenticeships, which would help ensure job seekers get exactly the training required for success in today’s job market

NeighborWorks America today announced that $31.58 million in financial capability grants have been awarded to 66 nonprofit organizations to assist individuals to stabilize their finances, rebuild their credit and establish savings. The one-time grants, awarded after a competitive process conducted by third party reviewers, are part of Project Reinvest, a limited and targeted program from NeighborWorks America, not related to its core grant operations.

Mortgage applications increased 0.4 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending July 21, 2017.

The National Institute of Building Sciences Building Seismic Safety Council (BSSC) will host the sixth webinar in its 2017 series sponsored by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The free webinar, “Seismic Design of Masonry with the 2015 NEHRP Provisions,” will be held Friday, August 25, 2017, from 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm ET (11:00 am to 12:00 pm PT).

DCHFA will launch the Housing Investment Platform (HIP) and Single Family Investment Pilot at the site of HIP’s first project Elvans Road Townhomes. DCHFA established HIP as a platform for innovative investments that will increase the Agency’s support of the D.C. housing market outside of traditional bond and tax credit financing. As a part of the Single Family Investment Pilot, DCHFA has partnered with H2DesignBuild and City First Bank of DC to construct Elvans Road Townhomes in Ward 8’s Barry Farm neighborhood in Washington, D.C.

California, Rhode Island Add Most Jobs for the Year; Missouri and District of Columbia Have Largest Drops; California, New Jersey Top Monthly List; Georgia and Wisconsin Have Biggest Decreases for the Month