Fixed-rate home mortgages fell in the latest week to their lowest levels since the spring of 2004, according to a Freddie Mac survey. The national average interest rate on the benchmark 30-year, fixed-rate loan averaged 5.48% in the week ended...

New home sales posted the biggest drop on record in 2007, according to the government's latest look at the battered housing market released Monday, as a year that saw a meltdown in the mortgage market and a drop in home values ended with yet more signs...

Building Teams pursuing certification under the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System now have the opportunity to view the Innovation & Design Credit Catalog – a listing of...

A full 16 percent of schools districts’ controllable costs is spent on energy. A new publication written specifically for K-12 school buildings will aid design teams in constructing energy-smart schools using off-the-shelf technology that can cut energy...

The Steel Index weekly reference prices for steel coil products in the U.S. have surged to 12-month highs and continue to rise sharply. Prices for steel coil products in the U.S. have hit their highest levels for more than a year, according to the...

The worst housing financial crisis in decades is only going to get worse, a Merrill Lynch report said Wednesday. The investment bank forecast a 15 percent drop in housing prices in 2008 and a further 10 percent drop in 2009, with even more...

At a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $518.4 billion, new construction starts in December were essentially unchanged from November, according to McGraw-Hill Construction, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies. Modest declines were reported for...

After a fall rebound from a summer slowdown, the Architecture Billings Index (ABI) recorded another healthy score in December. As a leading economic indicator of construction activity, the ABI shows an approximate nine to twelve month lag time between...

The Federal Reserve, confronted with a global stock sell-off fanned by increased fears of a recession, cut its target for the federal funds rate by three-quarters of a percentage point to 3.5%, the biggest single cut in interest rates since August 1982. ...

Prices for some construction materials such as lumber and finished items are at a two-year low due to weakening demand for building supplies around the U.S. and a seasonal downturn in local construction activity. According to the National Association...

Consumer spending, the critical bulwark that has kept the country out of a recession, is showing signs of cracking. Retail sales plunged by 0.4 percent last month as consumers battered by a sinking housing market, rising unemployment and the credit...

Steel buyers who had been patient before the holidays were paying the price of inactivity as they forayed into the US steel market Wednesday, concluding deals at least $30/st higher for hot-rolled coil and $20/st more for cold-rolled coil. The Platts...

New-home sales retreated during November, sinking to the lowest annual rate in 12 years. Home prices also receded, a further negative sign for consumer spending and the economy. Sales of single-family homes decreased by 9% last month to a seasonally...

U.S. house prices "likely would have to fall considerably" to return to a normal relationship with rents, says a study by one former and two current Federal Reserve economists. The study, which doesn't necessarily reflect the views of Fed policy...

Sales of previously owned homes nudged up in November, but that didn't improve the broader picture of a feeble housing market racked by record-high foreclosures and harder-to-get credit. The National Association of Realtors reported Monday that sales...

A key measure of U.S. manufacturing contracted sharply in December, in a sign that recent strength in export-related businesses is being swamped by problems in housing and other parts of the domestic economy. Until now, factories have shown resilience...