by Al Heavens
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On the House: Housing downturn, at high end
There's not a whole lot of residential construction going on these days, which is the reason that some builders are cutting to the bone to survive, while others are sailing into Bankruptcy Court, leaving broken dreams in their wake.
In normal times, builders produce about 1.7 million units of housing annually. Today, there are 2.1 million vacant houses nationwide.
It will be some time until that surplus is reduced enough for large-scale home building to resume. So you would think that those people still able to build custom houses would have their pick of builders and subcontractors. Lower material prices, too.
But that wasn't Christine Biben's experience as she and husband Eugene spent two years navigating recession-tossed waters en route to a $2 million-plus custom-built house in Merion Station.
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by Associated Press
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S&P: Home prices fall by record 19.1% in 1Q
NEW YORK - Home prices fell at the fastest annual rate on record in the first quarter, but the pace of month-to-month declines continues to slow, a closely watched housing index showed Tuesday.
The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller National Home Price index reported home prices tumbled by 19.1 percent in the first quarter, the most in its 21-year history.
Home prices have fallen 32.2 percent since peaking in the second quarter of 2006 and are at levels not seen since the end of 2002.
The 20-city index fell by 18.7 percent in March from the year before and the 10-city index lost 18.6 percent. Those declines were a bit better than February's and marked the second straight month the indexes didn't post record drops.
Still, there are no signs home prices have hit bottom.
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by Dan Kristie
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Council OKs wind energy purchase
WEST CHESTER - May brought the first tangible result of the borough's newly adopted Climate Action Plan when Borough Council agreed to purchase 20 percent of the borough's electricity for the remainder of the year from Community Energy, a wind energy supplier.
The electricity will cost $3,699 and will go toward powering Borough Hall and other municipal buildings. The borough did not have to put the electricity purchase out to bid because its total cost is below a $4,000 bidding threshold.
The Climate Action Plan, or CAP, calls for the borough to purchase an additional 20 percent of its energy from wind sources over the next four years, bringing the total to 100 percent by 2013. This means the contract will have to be bid next year.
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