New home construction appears to be making a slow and steady comeback with significant increases in housing starts and building permits in the last quarter, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Another sign that the housing industry is recovering is the increase in house plans sales. According to The House Designers, the leading provider of online house plans, they have already seen a 10% growth in house plans sales for 2012 over 2011, particularly among builders. Another trend is the increase in house plans that are 2,500 square feet or less with the best-selling house plan being the L’Attesa di Vita at 2,091 square feet. Of the top 10 best-selling house plans for 2012, 8 were 2,500 square feet or less.
View The House Designers collection of best-selling small house plans, including the L’Attesa di Vita.
A recent press release by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) states that builder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes has improved for a fourth consecutive month in August with a two-point gain to 37 on the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) bringing the index to its highest level since the market crashed in 2007. NAHB has been conducting this monthly survey for the last 25 years to gauge builder’s perception of the current single-family home building market.
Builders and homeowners continue to face similar challenges regarding the large inventory of foreclosures, difficulty in securing a construction loan and inaccurate appraisal values. Homeowners aren’t willing to sell their homes at the current price levels which is also pushing consumers to consider new home construction which is a good sign for builders and house plan providers like The House Designers.
As new homes continue to pop up in more and more areas around the U.S. homeowners are feeling more confident about building a new home.
“We’ve noticed that many of our house plan purchasers originally looked at purchasing an existing home, but found that the cost to build a new home was surprisingly more affordable and attainable than it was 5 years ago,” said Tammy Crosby, Chief Operating Officer of The House Designers. “Consumers are much savvier and actually looking to build a home that fits their needs, budget and lifestyle.”
The House Designers offers over 6,000 online stock house plans in a wide variety of sizes and architectural styles, which can all be easily customized at a fraction of the cost of having an architect or designer create a custom home design.
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View one of the newest designs from The House Designers Mediterranean house plans collection.
All of the construction drawings are builder-friendly and include detailed, dimensioned floor plans, basic electric layouts, structural information, cross sections, roof plans, cabinet layouts and elevations, as well as general specifications. To encourage builders to use stock house plans, The House Designers created the Preferred Builder Program. It’s free to all NAHB members.
Membership in The House Designers’ Preferred Builder program includes 15% off all house plan purchases with every eighth plan free. Additional benefits include a directory listing where consumers search for local contractors to build their new home, as well as marketing materials, free modification quotes and immediate delivery of house plans with digital PDF plan sets.
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Christine Cooney
Christine has over a decade of experience as a house plan and floor plan expert. Outside of providing her expertise to customers to help them find and build their dream homes, her passion and knowledge of the home building industry allows Christine to guide families and builders through all of the important steps from finding plans to building custom homes that meet the expectations of today’s new home owner. Christine’s years of knowledge of the diverse trends and needs of the modern homeowner has made her into an authoritative and trusted voice in the online house plan community.