Share Of Women In Construction At An All Time High

1. Throw in an accent rug Photo by Janof Architecture   Looking to redefine your space in one fell swoop? Look no further than a high-end accent rug. “The trend right now is to layer rugs on top of each other,” says  Pamela Durkin , owner of  Pamela Durkin Designs . “You can have a larger, more neutral rug in the room and then layer a smaller rug with more color and patterns. This is an easy way to bring a fresh look into the space.” 2. Build your own blanket ladder Photo by EL & EL Wood Products Corp. It's hard to find furniture that does double duty for looks and function—which is why we love the idea of this  DIY blanket ladder . “A blanket ladder is always great because your storage doubles as art,” says designer  Carmen Smith  of  Living Letter Home . “You don’t have the look of being unkempt with just tons of blankets lying around. Instead you’re storing them in a visually pleasing way that takes up even less space.” 3. Create a feature wall Photo by MK Pro

KMS Gardens and Design 1. ‘Red Obelisk’ Beech ( Fagus sylvatica  ‘Red Obelisk’) Beech are native to Central Europe and England; ‘Red Obelisk’ is a hybrid. Loved by:  Kathy Molnar Simpson of  KMS Gardens and Design  in Chicago Why this tree: Its columnar form maxes out at 5 feet wide when mature, which is great when height is needed in a tight space, Use these trees in front of a house or along a foundation, where they can help balance the scale between the home and lower garden plants. Pick up the leaf color in other plants grouped with this tree. The leaf coloration also pairs well with chartreuse and periwinkle colorations. Special features : “The narrow, columnar form and coloration are the highlights of the tree,” the designer says. “It also has a glowing mahogany fall color and winter interest from the tight branching form, undulating branches and smooth, silver bark.” Growing tips:  “This tree likes good, organic, loamy soil with plenty of regular moisture. It is pret

t appears the forbearance issue is already much more significant than federal decision-makers thought it would be. Federal Housing Finance Agency  Director Mark Calabria  told HousingWire  last week that his expectation was that approximately 1 million GSE mortgages will be in forbearance by May, but new data from  Black Knight  shows that the number of GSE mortgages in forbearance  already  far exceeds Calabria’s projection. According to Black Knight, nearly 1.4 million borrowers whose mortgages are backed by  Fannie Mae  and  Freddie Mac  are already in forbearance. To ascertain this data, Black Knight reviewed a sample set of loans that represent the majority of the mortgage market and extrapolated that data across the entire mortgage landscape. Black Knight’s data shows that overall, more than 2.9 million mortgages are in forbearance as of April 16. That figure represents 5.5% of all active mortgages. In total, those loans represent $651 billion in unpaid principal balan

Just a few days after it  raised its lending standards  to require nearly all purchase mortgage borrowers to have at least 20% down and a 700 FICO score,  JPMorgan Chase  is “temporarily pausing” its home equity line of credit offering. Beginning April 16, Chase will no longer accept new HELOC applications. Customers with existing HELOCs will be able to continue to draw funds on those lines of credit, but the bank is not accepting applications for new HELOCs. In a statement provided to HousingWire, Amy Bonitatibus, chief marketing officer for Chase Home Lending, said that the bank is making the change due to the “uncertainty” currently in the market. “Due to the economic uncertainty, we’re temporarily pausing new applications for home equity lines of credit,” Bonitatibus said. “Customers can still tap into their home’s equity through a cash-out refinance of their existing mortgage.” As Bonitatibus said, the bank will still allow customers to pull equity out of their houses thr

Standards for home loans are tightening by the hour as companies like  United Wholesale Mortgage , the nation’s largest wholesale lender, beef up rules to ward off early defaults from people losing jobs because of the COVID-19 pandemic. “I get as many as 10 emails a day from companies announcing new overlays – mostly for re-verification of employment,” said Mark Goldman, a loan officer with  C2 Financial  in San Diego. “All the lenders want to make sure borrowers are still working and still have cash flow.” Almost 14 million Americans have  filed for unemployment  in the last two weeks after businesses were closed and workers told to stay at home by states scrambling to reduce the spread of COVID-19. That record number doesn’t include people who lost their jobs and have been unable to get through to overwhelmed state employment offices to make a benefit claim. As lenders tightened standards, an index measuring the availability of mortgage credit in March crashed to the lowest le

With the housing industry at large  raising alarms  about mortgage servicers’ desperate need for liquidity as more borrowers are requesting forbearance, the nation’s largest mortgage aggregator is now warning originators that it could force them to buy back loans that go into forbearance. Late last week,  PennyMac , which grew last year into the largest mortgage aggregator in the country, told its correspondent originators that it will not buy any loan that is currently in forbearance. Beyond that, PennyMac also said that it may force originators to buy back a loan that goes into forbearance within 15 days of PennyMac buying it. “Any loan in forbearance or for which forbearance has been requested is not eligible for purchase by PennyMac,” the company said in a note to originators. “Additionally, any loan that is in forbearance or for which forbearance has been requested up to 15 days post purchase by PennyMac may result in a repurchase.” The move by PennyMac is a notable one c

How long the virus survives—and where it thrives The novel coronavirus can survive on surfaces anywhere from hours to days. The latest information is that it can last 24 hours on cardboard, 48 to 72 hours on plastic, and 48 to 72 hours on stainless steel, says  Dr. Reuben Elovitz , internist and CEO at  Private Health Dallas , who cited a recent study from the  New England Journal of Medicine . The duration also depends on a few other factors, like temperature and whether a surface is prone to holding moisture. “Wooden handles, for example, are more likely to be damp than metal under normal conditions—and damp conditions can enable many infectious agents to thrive,” explains molecular biologist  Dr. Tracey Evans . “ Furthermore, a warm room is more favorable for many pathogens than a cold one.” Regardless of what kinds of temperatures and surfaces you have in your home, there are things you can do to keep these dangerous pathogens at bay. Ditch germs at the door Clean an