Call me Diogenes: Looking for a Builder

By this time I expected to have a house under construction.  However, the builder I've worked with for the past several months presented a bottom line too rich for this potential homeowner.  His is the second high estimate I've gotten.  So, I'm having the project priced by other builders.  Given the time needed to pull a bid together, I'll be lucky to have a house under construction before summer's end.

Just about everyone agrees that the real estate and residential construction markets are in sad shape.  In fact, by most standards, this is the worst situation we've seen in half-a-century.  The Census Bureau's web site on Manufacturing, Mining, and Construction Statistics keeps track of housing starts.  Nationally, single-family housing starts in 2009 stood at 445,100 units, down from 1,715,800 in 2005.  As a comparison, the worst previous year since the 1950s was 1982 — reflecting the bottom of the 1981-82 recession — when housing starts dropped to 662,600.  In the Midwest, 2009 housing starts totaled 76,300 units, down from 102,300 in 2008.  In 1982 Midwest housing starts dropped to 98,800 units.  (The chart below is from January 2000-present.  Single-family housing is in blue.)

As for the current year, single-family housing starts in May declined nearly 8% to 468,000 units nationwide.  This probably reflects the expiration of the $8,000 federal tax credit.  One would assume that builders would be hungry.  But I haven't seen much evidence of that so far.

The statistics on house size are also intriguing.  Heated space in houses built in 2000 averaged 2,509 square feet.  By 2009 the average size had risen to 2,853 square feet.  By comparison, at 1,947 square feet, my house will be rather small.  That, too, should moderate the cost.  We'll see. •••