July 2019 Builders Bulletin: OFM Releases Annual Population Estimates

By MBAKS Senior Policy Analyst Allison Butcher

The Washington State Office of Financial Management has released its April 1 official population estimates of all cities and towns of the state, showing continued strong population growth. According to the annual estimates, the state’s population grew by 118,840 persons, a 1.6 % increase over the past year. The Puget Sound region’s population as of April 1, 2019 was 4,198,400. You’ll find the breakdown by county in this month’s Builders Bulletin.

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:

REX/T-REX Awards of the Master Builders Association Wins National Award

Bellevue, Wash., October 25, 2016—The Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties (MBA) was recently honored with a national Council Award for Demonstrating Remodeling Excellence (CADRE) award, Public Relations and Promotion category, in recognition of their Remodeling Excellence (REX) and Trade Remodeling Excellence (T-REX) awards program. The CADREs are presented each year by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Remodelers program.

The awards were announced October 6 during the annual NAHB Remodelers awards presentation at the 2016 Remodeling Show in Baltimore.

The MBA took home the honors in the public relations category of the CADREs for their work on their 30th anniversary Remodeling Excellence (REX) Awards event. Their efforts to improve the event resulted in an attendance increase of more than 100%, an 18% increase in award entry submissions, and triple the number of sponsorships from 2015.

The CADRE is the NAHB Remodelers' highest national award for work at the local level. To learn more about the REX/T-REX program, visit mbaks.com/rc

About the MBA

Founded in 1909, the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties (MBA) has grown to become the largest residential home builders association in the United States. With 2,800 member companies, the MBA is dedicated to membership value, government advocacy, financial stewardship, and promoting the residential building industry in the Puget Sound Region. The Association and its members address many of the concerns and issues affecting the residential housing industry. If you are looking to buy, build, remodel, or maintain your home, trust the MBA for industry professional referrals and practical information to get the job done. mbaks.com

ABOUT NAHB

The National Association of Home Builders, or NAHB, is a Washington-based trade association representing more than 140,000 members involved in home building, remodeling, multifamily construction, property management, subcontracting, design, housing finance, building product manufacturing and other aspects of residential and light commercial construction. NAHB is affiliated with 800 state and local home builders associations around the country. NAHB builder members will construct about 80% of the new housing units projected in 2016.

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Builders

10/04/2016

Chermak Construction Home in Edmonds Part of This Weekend’s Remodeled Homes Tour

Builders

10/19/2016

Housing Summit Addresses Housing Affordability Crisis

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.

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