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HBA HOME BUILDING NEWS
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PROTECTING YOUR INDUSTRY
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FEBRUARY, 2013
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HBApdx.org
Well, here it is — a February in
an odd-numbered year, and I’ll bet
you’ve been wondering why you
haven’t been hearing about the
legislature being in session and
all the bills that they’re working
on and the various ways they’re
scheming to pick your pocket.
Wonder no more! Thanks to the
magic of annual sessions, the leg-
islature convened in January but
didn’t actually get to work until
February. Long story, but the bot-
tom line is that you haven’t missed
anything yet.
And tomake sure that you don’t
miss anything, I wanted to remind
you of all the various ways you can
followOHBA’s activities during the
legislative session:
Twitter
: If you want your leg-
islative news and political gossip
immediately and in 140 character
snippets, then follow me on Twit-
ter:
@jon_ohba
. I’ll be posting as
things strike my interest – gener-
ally daily but occasionally more of-
ten if either circumstances or my
attention span warrant.
Blog
: We also have a govern-
ment affairs blog where slightly
longer pieces will be posted; you
can access the blog through the
OHBA website. Most of my up-
dates will be password protected.
You’ll need to contact Carol Myers
at
cmyers@oregonhba.com
for the
password. The frequency of the
posts will depend, of course, on
whether or not there’s anything
to talk about. And remember, a
session where nothing happens is
not necessarily a bad thing – but
there will probably be one or two
per week.
Weekly update
: Every week,
we email a report on that week’s
legislative activity. These generally
will contain short descriptions of
pertinent bills that are under con-
sideration, as well as some of the
legislative background noise that
affects OHBA’s interests. These
won’t come to you automatically,
though, so if you want to be on
the distribution list, please let ei-
ther me or Carol Myers know by
email at
jchandler@oregonhba.
com
or
cmyers@oregonhba.com
and we’ll put you on the list.
This column
: On a monthly ba-
sis, regular as clockwork more or
less, I’ll be writing an article that
during session tends to focus on
the legislature. The format allows
for a bit more in-depth discussion
of issues, but the gap between
writing and publication means
that they aren’t all that current –
these get written about a month
in advance of when they get
printed, so they’re not exactly up-
to-the-minute.
Government Affairs Commit-
tee conference calls:
We have
a Government Affairs commit-
tee made up of members from
around the state, and the com-
mittee will be meeting telephoni-
cally on probably a monthly basis.
If you’d like to listen in on the calls,
let either me or Carol know and
we’ll get you the necessary infor-
mation.
Legislative Day
: we haven’t
had one in quite a while, and we
don’t have the details worked out
for this one yet, but we will be
having a Legislative Day some-
time in April, where we’ll invite
OHBA members to come to Salem
and meet with their legislators
and get briefings from legislative
leadership and the governor’s of-
fice. We might even throw a little
bit of a party as long as we’ve got
everyone in town. We’ll be posting
information once we develop it.
So there you have it! There are
lots of ways to follow the fun and
only one of them involves a visit to
the state capitol. Although, if you
haven’t ever been or haven’t been
since grade school, I would en-
courage you to take a tour some-
time – it’s an attractive building
with a lot of interesting informa-
tion about Oregon history. And
it’s yours, as a taxpayer in Oregon.
It’s worth a visit.
And let me encourage you to
use one of these methods to keep
up with what’s going on. Even if
you’re not political and find the
process someplace between dis-
tasteful and annoying, the legis-
lature is still going to meet and
they’re still going to be consider-
ing bills that will affect your busi-
ness and your life either positively
or negatively. We’ll do as much as
we can to let you knowwhat those
bills are and what they do. I hope
you’ll take advantage of that infor-
mation being available and follow
along.
News from the Oregon Home
Builders Association
Jon Chandler’s
Oregon
Update
LISTS, TIPS AND INFORMATIVE CHARTS AND GRAPHS TO HELP YOU MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR BUSINESS
HBA
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ORG
By
The
Numbers
HBA
Single-Family permits were up
34% in ’12, rising from 2,248 in
‘11 to 3,009 last year in the five
County area covered by HBA
Metro Portland (excluding Clark
County). Multi-Family permits
were up even more, over 140%,
rising from 971 to 2,343. Re-
modeling activity stayed fairly
flat between ’12 and ’11, but still
relatively strong with over 3,200
permits in the five country area.
Overall new building activity
is up almost 80% from its low in
2009 of 2,976 (SF and MF) per-
mits. While this is a good sign
of an improving economy and
home building market, total new
home permits in ’12 of 5,352 are
still only 42% of the peak build-
ing volume done in 2005 when
over 12,700 permits were pulled.
While 2005 was an over-build
market, most experts feel that a
normal market would closer to
what we were building in 2002,
which was slightly over 10,400
permits. Using that as a baseline,
we are obviously still way under a
balanced market in terms of pro-
viding homes needed to meet
growing market demand. This,
combined with improvements in
the overall economy, increases
in home values for the first time
since 2005, and still historically
low interest rates, points to con-
tinued growth in 2013. The big-
gest challenge will be the short-
age of available lots ready for
building.
* Number in parentheses refers
to total units, which may be differ-
ent from total permits in the case of
single family and especially multi-
family/duplexes/twin homes. The
Difference calculated in this case is
on total units, not total permits.
This information provided by
Construction Monitor. For more in-
formation contact them at www.
constructionmonitor.com or call
(800) 756-4140
Permit activity
by county
(Jan. 1, 2012 – Dec. 31, 2012)
Washington County:
2012
2011
Difference*
Single Family
1126 (1134)
825 (837)*
+297
Multi-Family/Duplexes/Twins
46 (683)
23 (281)*
+402
Other Residential Structures
71
79
-8
Residential Remodels
611
635
-24
Alt. Residential Energy
310
370
-60
Multnomah County:
2012
2011
Difference*
Single Family
664 (666)
455 (457)*
+209
Multi-Family/Duplexes/Twins
50 (1100)
31 (211)*
+889
Other Residential Structures
114
83
+31
Residential Remodels
1839
1782
+57
Alt. Residential Energy
280
337
-57
Clackamas County
2012
2011
Difference*
Single Family
1022 (1022)
796 (795)*
+227
Multi-Family/Duplexes/Twins
36 (556)
23 (477)*
+79
Other Residential Structures
135
120
+15
Residential Remodels
610
701
-91
Alt. Residential Energy
192
136
+56
Yamhill County
2012
2011
Difference*
Single Family
151 (151)
117 (117)*
+34
Multi-Family/Duplexes/Twins
2 (4)
1 (2)*
+2
Other Residential Structures
55
33
+22
Residential Remodels
124
113
+11
Alt. Residential Energy
34
37
-3
Columbia County
2012
2011
Difference*
Single Family
36 (36)
42 (42)*
-6
Multi-Family/Duplexes/Twins
- -
- -
- -
Other Residential Structures
28
16
+12
Residential Remodels
35
39
-4
Alt. Residential Energy
2
2
- -