Publisher’s Note: August 2021

Hello Readers, in print and online,

I hope your summer is going very well and you are enjoying quality time with friends and family once again.

This issue marks the reintroduction of our Production Home Builder 500. Previously published as a popular component of our Annual Buyer’s Guide & SourceBook edition in April, this year we have spun off the PB500 and built this separate issue around these larger, more active home building companies. We have broken them down alphabetically by state, also indicating whether they build sustainably, how many markets they serve and provide CEO and website contacts. Next year we will include additional data fields in this PB500 August issue. Our popular housing economists have also contributed their perspectives and outlooks in this issue as well. Many thanks to each of them and to our team, for all of their yeoman’s work at the coal face, putting this data driven edition of the magazine, which is number 357, together for you.

The housing market continues to sizzle across the country. Although fewer permits issued and housing starts have impacted the market and have encouraged higher pricing. This is largely because of the massive increase in the costs of materials impacting builder margins. The market still remains almost but not quite as hot as the western U.S, where the dreaded summer wildfire season is off to a disastrously early start, yet again. We see more evidence of global warming every year. Huge floods, massive warm ups, increased droughts, earlier tornadoes and hurricane seasons, all clearly pointing the way down the path we find ourselves now standing on.

Our team has published Green Home Builder magazine, www.greenhomebuildermag.com for 16 years now. We have also developed the www.abcgreenhome.com Net-Zero, LEED Platinum demonstration home build, with the support of Southern California Edison, since 2010. Every 2 years our design team, led by the famous architectural team at Danielian Associates and joined by well known interior designer Jillian Pritchard Cooke, the driving force behind the Wellness Within Your Walls healthier home initiative and program, in collaboration with our engineering partners and product partners, apply building science, technology and construction techniques to develop a very energy efficient sustainable demonstration home, built exclusively using our participating advertisers building materials. We share the project from design, through site planning, permitting, construction and opening in our magazines, on our websites and e-newsletters and social media pages. We enter competitions, we share the project on consumer specific platforms and encourage in person and virtual engagements with the team and the build. Here is the virtual tour of the previous project; https://abcgreenhome.com/streaming/virtual-tour-greenhome-4-0/ The multiple award winning ABC Green Home 4.0 also achieved 10 Independent Energy Certifications, the most awarded to a single family home.

I have spent over a year, currycombing the Southern Californian countryside, looking for a suitable property for ABC 5.0, which is now approaching. We build in Southern California so we can push up against the toughest residential building code in the world, Title 24. We beat the 2019 Title 24 building code with ABC 4.0 by 37%. If you are interested in participating in our next Net-Zero, LEED Platinum build please get in touch. nslevin@builder.media will reach me and my hard working phone, which like most people’s, is welded to my paw.

Enjoy the balance of your Summer, take care and work hard.

Slainte,