Ceschini CPAs Tax & Advisory, PLLC’s Post

In the throes of a housing shortage, when it may seem that construction has slowed and opportunities are scarce, state and city subsidized affordable housing projects present a unique opportunity for M/WBEs to grow their business. #ConstructionCPAs #MBEs #WBEs #NYCConstruction #NYConstructionCompanies https://lnkd.in/eYeCaZn6

Ontario's Ambitious Housing Target Faces Hurdles Ontario's aim to build 1.5 million new homes is facing challenges, causing uncertainty for developers. The province recently rolled back boundary expansions imposed on several municipalities, leading to concerns about land availability and the ability to meet housing goals. Disagreements persist regarding the need for more land for housing. While urban boundary expansions were intended to boost construction, they faced objections in some cases. Higher interest rates and financing difficulties have also limited new housing construction. The costs of carrying financing have increased, and the prices of raw materials remain high, making it riskier for builders in a high-interest rate environment. Addressing these challenges is essential to achieving Ontario's ambitious housing target. https://bit.ly/3Mv4Ljf

Single-family housing starts ticked up 6.7% to a seasonal high of 983,000 units last month, a 9.5% increase year-on-year in July. The increase was led by the West, where single-family starts soared 28.5%. Permits for future construction also rose by 0.1% from June but were 13% lower than a year ago. Overall housing starts increased 3.9% to a rate of 1.452 million units in July.

Home builder AVJennings has pulled out of a major development site in southeast Queensland, citing application delays and rising infrastructure costs, with its move coinciding with a slump in new housing through the region. The residential developer will no longer progress with its option for a 3,500 lot site at Caboolture, north of Brisbane, which was expected to be finalised late this year. The company will take a $17.2m hit from the decision. If the crux of the housing crisis was a lack of land supply, this would not be happening. More land supply would not change this decision. The cost of construction essentially means nothing is stacking up right now - bad news for Albo's target of 1.2m new homes by 2029. Friends and colleagues: How does this get resolved? How do construction costs normalise? How long will we be living with this situation? #housingcrisis #auspol #labourcrisis #constructioncosts

We've said it before: building affordable housing units is anything but affordable to do. This article decided to dive into five especially pricey projects in San Deigo, CA to clarify what’s drove up costs for those specific projects. While each project is unique, this article is demonstrative of projects all across the country and gives some insight into the challenges we're facing in addressing the housing crisis.

Minister Bishop announced this week that he wants to "flood the market" with opportunities for housing development. While we're not sure that the word "flood" is appropriate for our communities here in Hawke's Bay and the East Coast, we get it. Minister Bishop is our Housing Minster and that man wants houses! I think that any tool that the Government can employ that will improve the development sector's ability to build houses is good, and I am here for the kōrero. What I feel is lacking is the acknowledgement that houses will not get built, even if the underlying plans and zoning allow for everything that Minister Bishop desires, if we don't also do the following: - Address decades of under-investment in our infrastructure and figure out how any new infrastructure will be designed, built and maintained; - Find the skilled, available tradespeople to design and build the necessary infrastructure and the houses; and - Figure out how to reduce our skyrocketing building costs. Check out more on my recent blog: https://lnkd.in/gYuj7gaH #housing #growth #Government #Policy

With housing supply and affordability expected to dip even further in 2024, RESCON is again calling on all three levels of government to step up efforts and work in unison to tackle the urgent crisis. Three initial steps are proposed: - reduce taxes, fees, levies and development charges on new housing - streamline, speed-up and simplify the development approvals system - embrace and invest in offsite construction as a means of speeding up construction “Notwithstanding all the talk of streamlining the system, the situation seems to have paradoxically worsened,” RESCON president Richard Lyall stated in Ontario Construction News. “Modernization is proceeding at a glacial pace. We are deeply lagging in adopting digitization and technology to improve our development approvals process which only delays new residential construction projects.” #housingsupplycrisis #cdnpoli #onpoli #topoli #aec Mark Anderson Arash Shahi Albert Bendersky Jason Chase Mark Buckshon Robin MacLennan

This article focuses on one project, Suffolk Downs, but the story is the same across the region. High construction costs and interest rates, coupled with Cities and Towns' requests for more affordable units, have made building housing almost impossible. The article briefly touches on affordability. Are municipalities willing to negotiate on the percentage of affordable units required to get projects off the ground? Unfortunately, that may be the only lever available to developers at the current moment.

Every time I look at a 100% affordable housing project the cost keeps going up. Recent projects coming in at $900k per unit for 5 units. Unbelievable. Market rate units with 25% affordable can be delivered at costs 20-40% less. Inclusionary zoning is best for volume of housing production but still much work to be done with easing local zoning controls for multi family.

I, like many of us I'm sure, will be keeping a keen eye on the outcome of the Government's #brownfield consultation which closed today. We're all well aware of the need for more homes to be built across the UK. And making better use of brownfield sites is one (!) good example of finding a solution that maximises the use of available land. Brownfield sites can, however, come with unique sets of challenges from legal and environmental to technical and commercial - these invariably take more time to navigate. This means that it's not only brownfield sites that the Government need to focus on, and it must still consider various other options to tackle the housing shortage and truly facilitate house building.   #housebuilding #planning