Teenager Austin Hay completed construction on a tiny house with wheels that he had begun during his sophomore year of high school. The home includes a full kitchen, loft, shower and composting toilet, and plans for solar panels.
Residential construction, remodeling, moving, gardening and furniture buying add up to about 20 percent of the country's gross domestic product — which is why the upward momentum in housing, which continues to gain steam, is such a powerful boost to the economy.
The housing market in many US cities is performing better than recent national data would suggest, leading some analysts and real estate brokers to express cautious optimism about the prospects for a recovery.
Existing home sales grew in August at the fastest annual pace since March and increased plans for new buildings drawn up by architects indicate a future surge in non-residential construction.
Banks are slashing the asking prices of homes with delinquent loans to their lowest levels in at least seven years, making it easier for homeowners to get out from under troubled mortgages and more appealing for homebuyers to snap up properties at a discount.
Contracts to buy previously owned U.S. homes rose to their highest level in more than two years - up 2.4 percent - in July, an industry group said on Wednesday, suggesting the housing market recovery was gaining traction.
Sometimes you have to dig for good news. And this is surely true in the real estate sector. There are some nuggets of good news buried in the latest housing data. Here are three encouraging trends.
Ten of the nation's major banks, such as Bank of America and Citibank, have agreed to pay $8.5 billion after an investigation into the abuse of homeowners during foreclosures on mortgages during the recent housing crisis. According to the Fed, $3.3 billion of the settlement will be direct payments to eligible borrowers and $5.2 billion will go toward other assistance, such as loan modifications and forgiveness of deficiency judgments.
The stock market just had its best first quarter in 14 years and analysts are scrambling to raise their estimates for the year. In the measurements of seemingly every other indicator of US economic health, optimism bubbled up with each new report released in March.
A tiny house built by homeless people and other volunteers serves as a model for addressing homelessness in a southern U.S. city.
Your house isn't gonna declutter itself - so here's a comprehensive tip on organizing your clutter for good.
Thanks to the kindness of an Irish princess during the Renaissance, the town of Geel has been helping visitors with mental illness ever since.
After an arduous three-and-a-half-years building it in her California backyard, Kendall Ronzano is donating the "tiny home" she started at age 16. Last week, it was pulled on its portable trailer to Austin, Texas where it will provide shelter to a homeless person or family in a 27-acre transitional homeless community.
Homeless people have allowed an innovative program to lift them off the streets and place them in a community coop farm growing organic fruits and vegetables.
European citizens got tired of their governments failing to help Syrian refugees, so they took matters into their own hands using the Airbnb model.
For years, families seeking shelter from war and disaster have had to live in refugee tents made of tarps on metal frames. Now, IKEA has stepped in with 10,000 Better Shelters that even have solar panels.
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