By Nick Harper, MBA Senior Director of Strategy and Policy

Dec. 19, 2016—Earlier this month, the Master Builders Association recognized several individuals for their contributions to the Association at our annual Winter Gala and Installation of Officers. The event took place Dec. 8 at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.

The MBA honored three members who have been integral to our accomplishments in 2016 with Member of the Year Awards. Bonnie Geers of Quadrant Homes was named Builder Member of the Year; Joseph Irons of Irons Brothers Construction was named Remodeler Member of the Year; and Duana Koloušková of Johns Monroe Mitsunaga and Koloušková was named Associate Member of the Year.

All three of these members were recognized, in part, for their contributions to our Association's advocacy efforts on behalf of housing.

Bonnie has long been a trusted voice in housing policy and land use discussions at the MBA, regularly testifying before city councils and planning commissions in support of our industry's positions on housing issues. She has also chaired the Association's political action committee, the Affordable Housing Council, since 2014.

As our Association's 2016 President, Joseph Irons has emphasized the importance of Building Synergy Together. This concept of working together as a team and reaching out to build partnerships in the community is a vital element to the advocacy work we do at the MBA. Joseph has also been a tireless advocate for workforce development, stressing the importance of encouraging young people to enter the trades and the need to support them with adequate funding for career and technical education.

Duana has always provided thoughtful input on housing policy and land use issues, engaging with the Housing Policy Committee and the AHC. She also served as co-counsel on the MBA's behalf on a case concerning the city of Seattle's ‘qualifying lot' design review ordinance. In a decisive victory for the MBA, this bad ordinance was overturned.

In addition to the Member of the Year awards, the MBA honored Don Davis, retired director of government affairs, with an Exceptional Service Award. This award recognizes members and staff for their many years of professional leadership and exemplary service to the MBA. Don served the Association for over 32 years, advocating on behalf of housing and working to promote a better climate for housing. Among his many accomplishments, Don developed the fundraising concept behind our Association's "Just Ten Percent" program, which encourages members to donate 10 percent of their GRIP or ROII returns to the Affordable Housing Council to help support housing-friendly candidates and causes. To this day, having contributions to this fund is a critical element in our success on lobbying on behalf of the residential building industry.

The Gala concluded with the presentation of the MBA Hall of Fame award, which this year went to the late Myra Williams. Myra was honored for her outstanding achievement in member recruiting, which certainly contributed greatly to our Association's membership growth. But more than that, Myra was acknowledged for being such an active and engaged member. Her strong enthusiasm for this Association was, and still is, an inspiration to others.

It was also great to see Mark Huber of Huber's Custom Building honored with the Spirit of Service Award and Anthony Maschmedt of Dwell Development recognized with the Built Green® Moving the Market Award—both very well deserved.

Congratulations to all the award recipients! These individuals offer an important reminder of the positive accomplishments that can be realized by simply being willing to step up and lead by example.

Thinking about incoming President Mike Walsh's theme for 2017, "Elevating Our Influence," I'd like to encourage all of us to find ways to engage more with the Association. Whether it's advocacy, community stewardship, or some other area, there are lots of ways members can get more involved in bringing about positive changes for housing and the community.

Photo credit: Alabastro Photography

By MBAKS Senior Policy Analyst Allison Butcher

On Sept. 15, the third annual Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties Housing Summit drew a large crowd as we addressed our region's housing affordability crisis.

Governor Jay Inslee offered the keynote speech highlighting the need to produce more housing units and find greater efficiencies in our permit and regulatory processes. Other speakers included Windermere economist Matthew Gardner; Solid Ground President and CEO Gordon McHenry Jr.; John DesCamp of Washington Trust Bank; and Peter Orser, the director of the University of Washington's Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies.

An exclusive video detailing the struggles families face buying a home in today's market was produced for the Summit. You can also view photos from the event.

Next Steps

The Housing Summit helps launch and build momentum for your association's legislative priorities in Olympia. Housing affordability will be the focal point of those efforts in 2017 and beyond. The MBA has identified a number of areas where we plan to focus our advocacy efforts with the hope of improving housing affordability for all of our region's residents.

Specifically, the MBA will continue working to focus policy action on our region's buildable land supply; restore and protect vested development rights; address condo construction defect liability; ensure funding for housing and homeless programs occurs parallel with increased housing supply; and incentivize affordable housing. We have shared these priorities with Governor Inslee's Affordable Housing Advisory Board (AHAB) and are making sure our voice is heard in Olympia.

The MBA also surveyed Housing Summit attendees to get their thoughts on how we can address the housing affordability crisis and we are taking this feedback into consideration. Ideas include such things as increased densities in single family neighborhoods, more focus on multifamily housing, reforming the Growth Management Act, concentrating resources on infrastructure, addressing the skilled labor shortage in the construction industry, and taking further steps to address the homeless crisis.

For more on the specific ideas discussed at the Housing Summit, the Seattle King County REALTORS® wrote this re-cap of the event and the Lens featured it here.

By MBAKS Senior Policy Analyst Allison Butcher

The supply of housing inventory for sale stood at 1.74 months in King County and 1.47 months in Snohomish County in August, which is down slightly from a year ago.  Meanwhile, single-family building permits were down 8% YTD and multifamily permits down 5% in the three-county Seattle Metro Area (King, Snohomish, and Pierce counties) as of July, compared to the same period last year. 

The Builder's Bulletin is intended to provide a convenient way to track housing in our market and includes information from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, State of the Cities Data Systems, Office of Financial Management and the Washington State Employment Security Department.

Download this month's report: