Fiberglass remains the most popular insulation choice among home builders, with better than a 50% market share according to some studies. The advantages are compelling: competitive cost and a ready installer base. But like any fiber insulation, the performance of fiberglass depends on the quality of the installation job. Well-installed fiberglass is as effective as any insulation, R-value being equal, while poorly installed fiberglass underperforms its promised R-value rating. So it’s up to the builder to ensure a quality job.

Fiberglass gets its insulating quality not from the fiberglass itself but from the air that is trapped between the fibers. Wind pressure or even convective air pressures can make that air move, degrading the thermal performance of the batt. So to be effective, fiberglass has to be protected against air pressures. There’s a simple rule that’s not always followed: Align the air pressure boundary of the building with its thermal boundary. In practice, that means that fiberglass batts need to be installed in walls so that the batt is in full contact with the wall sheathing on the outboard side and with the drywall on the inboard side. The batts also have to be in full contact with the studs on either side of the stud cavity.

Housewrap on the wall is critical to the performance of this assembly. Wind blowing into the wall through cracks and crevices can degrade the performance of the insulation by 50% or more. Well-installed housewrap prevents this air intrusion and allows the insulation to perform at its rated value.

In the fast-moving world of the job site, insulation installers are under pressure to make time. The task often is not thought of as a craft where quality matters. But in fact, the insulation installer’s job is significant in the overall performance of the finished house, and there is skill involved. Insulation workers should be trained and supervised to do a quality job.

Batts should be carefully fit to the space. If the stud spacing varies from the standard 16-inch or 2-foot spacing, the batts should be trimmed to fit snugly, rather than jammed into the space. Batts should be cut around obstructions such as outlets or switch boxes. Where wiring interferes with the placement of the batt, the batt should be split and carefully fit around the wires. To make sure the batt is in contact with the wall sheathing, the installer should push the batt back against the sheathing, then pull the face side out from the wall to fluff the material up.

A Complete Air Barrier

To be effective, a home’s air barrier should be continuous and complete. This isn’t too hard to accomplish for most areas of the house, but there are locations in the building envelope where air barrier assemblies are sometimes neglected. These elements are called out in the Energy Star program’s Thermal Bypass Checklist. (See also the EPA’s Thermal Bypass Checklist Guide for detailed instruction on completing the checklist.)

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One example is the location where a tub or shower unit is placed against an exterior wall. It’s common for the wall to be insulated, then the tub to be set without the wall being drywalled first. This results in the insulation being exposed to the air behind the tub, rather than protected and supported. To satisfy the Thermal Bypass Checklist, that wall should be drywalled or otherwise covered with a rigid sheet material before the tub is installed.

Fireplaces are similar to tubs and showers: They are often set against an insulated wall that hasn’t been drywalled. Here again, the Thermal Bypass Checklist calls for that wall to be covered with a rigid material that will resist airflow and support the insulation.

Another example is the wall between an unconditioned attached garage and the conditioned part of the house. While the garage wall may be drywalled, it’s often the case that the wall above the garage ceiling is left with exposed insulation. To satisfy the checklist, the interface between the house and the unconditioned space should be covered with a rigid airtight material.

Similarly, builders sometimes attach porch roofs to the main house without first sheathing the exterior wall, potentially leaving insulation exposed to the unconditioned air under the roof. To satisfy the checklist, this juncture must be protected with an air barrier material. The simplest way to accomplish this is just to sheathe the house wall before attaching the porch.

The Importance of the Stack Effect

Air movement through an air barrier requires a pressure difference and a hole for the air to move through. In cold climates, one of the important sources of pressure difference is the stack effect. Heated air in the building has a tendency to rise, creating a negative (outdoor to indoor) pressure at the bottom of the house and a positive (indoor to outdoor) pressure at the top of the house. There’s nothing you can do to prevent stack pressure from occurring. So to address the air leakage, the strategy is to seal up the holes.

In practical terms, this means that the priority air leaks in a two-story or higher house are the lowest and the highest holes in the air barrier. Pay special attention to low leak points such as the first-floor band joist area, and to high leak points such as the second-floor ceiling. Time spent sealing up attic locations such as can light penetrations, duct registers, and wall top plates will pay off in performance during cold weather.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Construction of new U.S. homes surged 22.6% last month as homebuilders bounced back from a lull induced by the coronavirus pandemic.

The Commerce Department reported Tuesday that new homes were started an annual pace of nearly 1.5 million in July, highest since February and well above what economists were expecting. Housing starts have now risen three straight months after plunging in March and April as the virus outbreak paralyzed the American economy. Last month’s pace of construction was 23.4% above July 2019’s.

“U.S. housing starts blew the roof off of expectations in July … …. these are the kind of gains seen after storms/hurricanes,” Jennifer Lee, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, wrote in a research note. Strong demand and limited supply drove builders to break ground.

The big gains came from the construction of apartments and condominiums, which soared 56.7%. But single-family home construction ticked up, too, by 8.2%.

Construction rose all over — 35.3% in the Northeast, 33.2% in the South, 5.8% in both the Midwest and the West.

Applications for building permits, a good indication of future activity, jumped 18.8% from June to an annual rate of 1.5 million, highest since January and up 9.4% from July 2019.

The National Association of Home Builders reported Monday that builders’ confidence this month matched the record high first reached in December 1998. “Strong demand and a record level of homebuilder confidence will support housing starts in the second half of 2020,” economists Nancy Vanden Houten and Gregory Daco of Oxford Economics wrote.

But they warned that Congress’ failure to approve another rescue package could take a toll on the economy. “The still-widespread coronavirus and an economy struggling to recover without fiscal support may limit the upside” for the housing industry, they wrote.

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With today’s release of the April S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, we learned that seasonally adjusted home prices for the benchmark 20-city index were up 0.33% month over month which is cut to 0.16% with inflation adjustment. The nonseasonally adjusted index was up 4.0% year-over-year.

Investing.com had forecast a 0.5% MoM seasonally adjusted increase and 4.0% YoY nonseasonally adjusted for the 20-city series.

Here is the analysis from today’s Standard & Poor’s press release:

“April’s housing price data continue to be remarkably stable,” says Craig J. Lazzara, Managing Director and Global Head of Index Investment Strategy at S&P Dow Jones Indices. “The National Composite Index rose by 4.7% in April 2020, with comparable growth in the 10- and 20-City Composites (up 3.4% and 4.0%, respectively). In all three cases, April’s year-over-year gains were ahead of March’s, continuing a trend of gently accelerating home prices that began last fall. Results in April continued to be broad-based. Prices rose in each of the 19 cities for which we have reported data, and price increases accelerated in 12 cities.

“As was the case in March, we have data from only 19 cities this month, since transactions records for Wayne County, Michigan (in the Detroit metropolitan area) continue to be unavailable. This is, so far, the only directly visible impact of COVID-19 on the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices. The price trend that was in place pre-pandemic seems so far to be undisturbed, at least at the national level. Indeed, prices in 12 of the 20 cities in our survey were at an all-time high in April.

“Among the cities, Phoenix retains the top spot for the 11th consecutive month, with a gain of 8.8% for April. Home prices in Seattle rose by 7.3%, followed by increases in Minneapolis (6.4%) and Cleveland (6.0%). Prices were particularly strong in the West and Southeast, and comparatively weak in the Northeast.” [Read more]

The chart below is an overlay of the Case-Shiller 10- and 20-City Composite Indexes along with the national index since 1987, the first year that the 10-City Composite was tracked. Note that the 20-City, which is probably the most closely watched of the three, dates from 2000. We’ve used the seasonally adjusted data for this illustration.

The next chart shows the year-over-year Case-Shiller series, again using the seasonally adjusted data.

Here is the same year-over-year overlay adjusted for inflation with the Consumer Price Index owners’ equivalent rent of residences.

For a long-term perspective on home prices, here is a look at the seasonally and inflation-adjusted Case-Shiller price index from 1953, the first year that monthly data is available. Because the CPI owners’ equivalent rent of residences didn’t start until 1983, we’ve used the broader seasonally adjusted Consumer Price Index.

To get an even better idea of the trend in housing prices over long time periods, we compare the change in the seasonally-adjusted Case-Shiller Home Price Index and the Consumer Price Index since 1953.

For additional perspectives on residential real estate, here is the complete list of our monthly updates:

• S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index
• FHFA House Price Index
• NAHB Housing Market Index
• New Home Sales
• Existing Home Sales
• New Residential Housing Starts
• New Residential Building Permits
• Secular Trends in Permits and Starts
• Pending Home Sales

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A revised map of New York State showing the phases each of the 10 regions are currently in. On June 10, Long Island will join the rest of the state when it enters phase two.

WHITE PLAINS—Today is the day real estate brokers and agents have been anxiously waiting for since March 22 when Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued the “New York on Pause” order that virtually shut down the real estate industry and all other “non-essential” businesses in the state.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced this morning (June 9) that the Mid-Hudson region, which includes Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Putnam, Dutchess, Sullivan and Ulster counties, entered phase two which lessen restrictions on real estate, offices, essential and phase II in-store retail, vehicle sales, leases, and rentals, retail rental, repair, and cleaning, commercial building management, hair salons and barbershops and now allows outdoor dining at restaurants.

The Mid-Hudson entered phase one of the reopening process on May 26, which loosened restrictions on the construction and manufacturing industries, as well as the wholesale supply chain. In addition, certain retail operations were eligible to be expanded for curbside pickup and drop-off or in-store pickup. The phase one designation also affected the agriculture, forestry and fishing industries, but had no beneficial impact on the real estate industry, with the exception of real estate development construction.

The Mid-Hudson could be eligible for phase three of the four-phased reopening program on Tuesday, June 23, which will lift some restrictions on food service and personal care. The final phase (four) would impact arts/entertainment/recreation and educational sectors.

Gov. Cuomo, who noted that today was day 101 since the first case of COVID-19 was diagnosed in the state, praised the work of government, health and business leaders for helping facilitate the phase two designation. “The numbers are down because you brought the numbers down,” he said. The governor noted that at the peak of COVID-19 back in April, the Mid-Hudson reported 75 deaths in one day. On June 8, there were no COVID-19 related deaths in the entire Hudson Valley region. Westchester County Executive George Latimer, in a later press conference, noted that there was one COVID-19 related death the previous evening in Westchester County.

Latimer chronicled the great progress the county and the Mid-Hudson region has achieved since the peak of the pandemic in April. He noted that two months ago on April 9, there were 44 COVID-related deaths in Westchester County. Since the pandemic began, there have been 1,396 deaths attributed to the coronavirus in Westchester.

He said that with the onset of phase two the county can “return to a reasonable place in our society, hopefully where we are fighting the contagion effectively, but at the same time we are starting to reopen businesses and really get back to something close to normal.”

Since the shutdown of the economy back in March, real estate professionals have tried to offer services and facilitate sale transactions on a virtual basis. The phase two designation lifts restrictions, but does mandate safety protocols, including social distancing. One key change with the phase two designation is that in-person real estate showings are now permissible as long as safety protocols are adhered to.

“The day we’ve all been yearning for is finally here! Many agents are jumping right in, with appointments already scheduled today. I expect that we are going to be as busy as we’ve ever been, with pent up buyer demand, sellers who’ve been waiting until now to put their homes on the market, and a lot more steps to every showing,” said HGAR President Gail Fattizzi.

She added, “As we begin meeting our clients in-person again, we must stay mindful that COVID-19 is still here, and take every precaution. HGAR intends to continue providing CE classes and holding meetings virtually, along with great free programs via Zoom. We should all expect that ‘re-opening’ is going to be a slow, steady process, not an instant change back to normal.”

HGAR Chief Executive Officer Richard Haggerty noted, “For 11 weeks the Realtor community has done our part, first by ‘pausing’ and then by shifting our business to a remote environment, in order to flatten the curve and slow the spread of COVID-19. That goal has been achieved and now it’s time to relaunch real estate, following the ESD guidance and with great concern for safety, and get the state economy relaunched.”

Other county and business leaders hailed the beginning of phase two as a milestone that will hopefully begin to relaunch the regional economy, now that New York City has entered phase one (yesterday).

John Ravitz, executive vice president of the Business Council of Westchester, said that the Westchester economy is still in uncharted waters and praised the business community for its resiliency to date in dealing with the COVID pandemic.

“None of us knew what we were facing when the pandemic hit and so many different businesses in different sectors had to pivot; had to deal with their concerns for their employees, as well as their clients and customers,” Ravitz said. “I think what puts Westchester on the map throughout the country is the ingenuity and the creativity we have seen from our business leaders.”

Government officials talked of the work that has been done and the efforts that will need to be made to get their economies back on track.

“County government is doing everything humanly possible to assist these businesses as they reopen,” said Rockland County Executive Ed Day. “We have been sharing guidance with municipalities, local chambers of commerce and with businesses directly through our Office of Economic Development and Tourism. We have also hosted three business info livestreams to communicate critical information and promote Rockland’s tech sector.”

Day also noted that last week the county’s ROCK GOV – FACE COV program which gave out 25,000 masks to local small businesses and nonprofits which have fewer than 20 employees.

“Bottom line, we are working to ensure that businesses reopen in a way that is responsible and protects the health and safety of both their employees and customers,” he added.

Sullivan County government offices will slowly begin reopening to in-person visits, according to County Manager Josh Potosek. “We are bringing back less than 50% of our employees onsite, and offices will be open to the public by appointment only,” Potosek stated. “This is to ensure that the plan we’ve developed is workable and safe before we bring back more employees and reopen for walk-in customers—likely with the start of phase 3.”

The following is guidance from Empire State Development Corp. on In-Person Showings in Phase Two

Residential In-Person Property Showings and Related Activities

Responsible Parties may conduct in-person property showings while adhering to social distancing and required PPE safety guidelines. The following measures must be followed:

• Showings and open houses will only be allowed in unoccupied (e.g., current owner or lessee is not inside the property) or vacant properties;

• For all showings and open houses, Responsible Parties should limit the number of individuals viewing a property at any one time. If multiple parties (from different households) arrive for a showing at the same time, Responsible Parties should encourage those in line to wait outside until their turn.

• As a best practice, appointments for showings should be scheduled in advance, when possible.

Responsible Parties as well as all individuals (e.g. building inspectors / appraiser or potential buyer/lessee) visiting the property will be required to wear a face covering at all times, and Responsible Parties may choose to require gloves and shoe-covers to be worn;

• Responsible Parties should provide face coverings and gloves to prospective tenants and/or buyers, if necessary;

• Responsible Parties should advise prospective tenants/buyers to only touch essential surfaces (e.g. handrails going up/down stairs if necessary) during their time in the property. Other areas or surfaces such as cabinets, countertops, appliances etc. should not be touched by tenants/buyers.

• Responsible Parties must ensure employees, salespeople, agents and brokers clean and disinfect high-touch surfaces (e.g. handrails, doorknobs etc.) before and after every showing; and

• Responsible Parties must stagger showings in order to avoid the congregation of people outside and inside properties.

• Responsible Parties are encouraged not to show common building amenities in-person (e.g. gym, roof deck, pool).

• If the common areas mentioned above are shown, Responsible Parties must ensure that those areas are frequently cleaned and disinfected and appropriate social distancing of 6 feet is maintained for all parties at all times.

• Responsible Parties should encourage only one party (e.g. building inspector, home appraiser, prospective tenant/buyer, photographer, stager) to be allowed inside the property at a time. If more than one party is inside the property at the same time, 6 feet of distance must be maintained at all times between individuals, and face coverings must be worn.

• Responsible Parties and prospective tenants/buyers are encouraged not to bring young children or extraneous guests to property showings, when possible, or leave attended children outside.

• Responsible Parties should limit salespeople / brokers from driving in the same car with prospective tenants / buyers. If this cannot be avoided, face coverings must be worn by everyone in the vehicle and frequently touched areas of the vehicle should be cleaned and disinfected.

• Open houses must also only allow one party inside the property at a time.

• Responsible Parties are encouraged, but not required, to conduct remote walkthroughs rather than
in-person walkthroughs (e.g. recorded/live video), where possible.

For important information, guidance and forms related to the Reopening of Real Estate in NY during Phase 2 go to HGAR.com COVID-19 Resources or click links below:

New York Forward – Reopening Guidelines and Forms

New York State Safety Plan Template —(This template, or another safety plan template, needs to be completed and made available upon an inspection by the Dept. of Health or local safety dept.)

New York State Guidance for Phase 2 — (At the bottom of this form there is a link to submit that the broker owner has read the form).

Real Estate Guidelines for Employers and Employees

Reflecting the growing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, builder confidence in the market for newly-built single-family homes plunged 42 points in April to 30, according to the latest National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI). The decline in April was the largest single monthly change in the history of the index and marks the lowest builder confidence reading since June 2012. It is also the first time that builder confidence has been below the key breakeven reading of 50 since June 2014.

The unprecedented drop in builder confidence is due to the coronavirus outbreak across the nation, as unemployment has surged and gaps in the supply chain have hampered construction activities. Builders have also expressed confusion over eligibility for the Paycheck Protection Program, as some builders have successfully submitted loan applications while others have not been able to. NAHB is working with the White House, Treasury and Congress to get the broadest builder participation possible. Home building remains an essential business throughout most of the nation.

Before the pandemic hit, the housing market was showing signs of strength with January and February new home sales at their highest pace since the Great Recession. To show how hard and fast this outbreak has hit the housing sector, a recent poll of NAHB members reveals that 96 percent reported that virus mitigation efforts were hurting buyer traffic. While the virus is severely disrupting residential construction and the overall economy, the need and demand for housing remains acute. As social distancing and other mitigation efforts show signs of easing this health crisis, NAHB expects that housing will play its traditional role of helping to lead the economy out of a recession later in 2020.

Derived from a monthly survey that NAHB has been conducting for 30 years, the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index gauges builder perceptions of current single-family home sales and sales expectations for the next six months as “good,” “fair” or “poor.” The survey also asks builders to rate traffic of prospective buyers as “high to very high,” “average” or “low to very low.” Scores for each component are then used to calculate a seasonally adjusted index where any number over 50 indicates that more builders view conditions as good than poor.

The HMI index gauging current sales conditions dropped 43 points to 36, the component measuring sales expectations in the next six months fell 39 points to 36 and the gauge charting traffic of prospective buyers also decreased 43 points to 13.

Looking at the monthly averages regional HMI scores, the Northeast fell 45 points in April to 19, the Midwest dropped 42 points to 25, the South fell 42 points to 34 and the West dropped 47 points to 32.

The HMI survey took place between April 1 and April 13.

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