Page 4 - Ted Leighty News Today

Solutions to Colorado’s lack of affordable housing problem will have to come from myriad angles, including regionalizing and streamlining permitting, increasing the skilled labor workforce and curing “NIMBYism,” industry experts

The Colorado we want.Thats the animating spirit behind Gov. Jared Poliss speech in January, when he stood before the Colorado General Assembly to outline his vision for navigating the big

Ted Leighty is the voice of Colorado’s homebuilders, who face plenty of obstacles in their efforts to catch up with the state’s housing demands.

The Home Builders Association of Metro Denver is hearing rebuilding may cost between $300 and $350 per square foot for homes between 2,000 and 2,400 square feet.

If their wood is stolen, it costs a lot to replace it.  While lumber costs have recently gone down, Leighty said they are nowhere near last years prices.  "They’re not even close," he said. "They’re still 300-plus percent over where they were last time this year."  The National Association of Homebuilders estimates the skyrocketing prices adds $36,000 to each single family home built.  While HBA members trust the suppliers they buy their lumber from, Leighty warns people working on pe...

Whether it be homeowners, contractors or hardware stores, everyone is feeling the spike in the cost of lumber. The pandemic spurred home improvement projects or people buying houses, which has led to price increases for materials. For lumber, those price increases land in the ballpark of 250% according to various estimates. That then affects anything that has to deal with wood, from your do-it-yourself home improvement project to matching the high demand for housing. The National Homebuilders A...

Michael Elizabeth Sakas/CPR News Hundreds of homes like this one were destroyed in the East Troublesome fire last year. All that’s left of many is the stone chimney. Dec. 31, 2021. When the East Troublesome fire hurtled towards Matthew Reed-Tolonen’s Grand Lake home last October, he made sure to lock up his family’s fireproof safes before they evacuated.  “That was like the marriage license, birth certificates, all that kind of stuff,” Reed-Tolonen said. “I thought I was good. I wa...