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Across the board (with the exeption of of a few vendors like appliances ) our vendors are reporting that their labor and material costs are relatively low. The pricing we have been getting for direct costs of new custom homes & large additions to homes in the Washington DC area have remained low for a few years now. However, we are noticing vendors getting slightly busier than they’ve been in the last year or two.

Here’s one of our excellent vendors, Glen Embry, of Metcalf HVAC, explaining what he thinks of the current market:

Another reason it’s a great time to build your custom home —
home prices are low and work quality is high. Here is an electrical
contractor who works in the Montgomery County Maryland,
Fairfax County Virginia, N.W. Washington D.C. area and works
on new homes for area home builders:

New custom homes in older neighborhoods increases values of surrounding properties

Even the neighbors love us:

Here’s Paramounts World-Class architect, on-site, live and off the cuff:

According to BuilderOnline.com, Washington D.C. made the top ten healthiest housing markets for 2009. Washington D.C. actually ranked number 6.

Here is what was written about the Washington DC housing market:

Washington D.C. showed signs last summer that it might be emerging from the downturn, then it turned south again. Even so, the area produces a ton of jobs—an estimated 35,000 in the last year—that fuel a vibrant housing market, the 11^th largest in the country. Many of the jobs stem from contracts with the federal government. Washington D.C. remains a relatively unaffordable place to live, with a median home price of $332,700 in the third quarter of last year.

One prime reason the of the ranking is that the population in Washington DC area has grown around one percent each year for the past five years.

The home building patterns have changed as well. Many families moving to the area are demanding to be inside or immediately outside the capital beltway because the traffic is one in the nation’s worst. I live inside the beltway and I can get any where I need to go — from Washington D.C.  and the Virginia and the Maryland suburbs in 20 to 30 minutes. And if I travel during off-rush house times, it may be 10 to 15 minutes.

We are even working with new home building clients that are moving down to inside the beltway from Gaithersburg, Md.,  Culpepper, Va.,  and Frederick, Md.

The BuilderOnline section is courtesy of: Hanley Wood Market Intelligence.