Builder - January 2009 - (Page 89) NAHB BRIEFS Remembrance D onald D. Martin, who served as president of the NAHB in 1998, died on Dec. 3 at the age of 74 after suffering a stroke. Martin was a second-generation home builder whose company, Martin Development Corp., operated in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, N.M. The son of a custom BEAT NEWS FROM HOUSING’S GROUND ZERO ■ NATIONAL EDI T ED BY CL A IR E KOLT KO home builder in Lamed, Kan., Martin built more than 9,000 homes during his career. While president, he led the association’s successful effort to increase the loan limits of the FHA and expand homeownership opportunities. FROM THE CHAIRMAN Fight for Financing Hard Learned After a bad year, there are a few lessons the industry can take away from 2008. H david clark ome builders with outstanding construction loans are reporting that they are having to stop work on new housing developments and are losing sales as the result of failed banks and thrift institutions being taken over by the FDIC. “Builders with outstanding loans that are placed under FDIC control are frequently unable to contact a decision maker to deal with routine but ▶ I f you had asked me a year ago about my In the housing market, circumstances were expectations for housing in 2008, I probably particularly bleak. Foreclosures rose to record would have said that it was going to be very chal- levels, home values dropped in most markets, and lenging, but that the housing market would builders nationwide confronted a serious ongoing begin a modest rebound late in the year. credit crunch. Housing starts fell to the lowest level Little did anyone know then that the since 1945. The NAHB’s own Housing economy was already in a recession and Market Index, which measures builder that 2008 would see the worst housing sentiment about the housing market, dropped into single digits to the lowest market—and the worst economic turlevel ever reported. moil—since the Great Depression. Against this complex backdrop, the The economy and financial markets NAHB has worked—and continues to experienced a near-fatal meltdown requirwork nonstop—to bring relief to members. ing extensive government intervention; at Just the short list of our activities includes times last fall, it seemed that hardly a day intensive lobbying for decisive legislative went by without a major institution failing SANDY DUNN or calling on the federal government for chairman of the board, action, extensive ongoing contact with nahb key regulators, developing (see page 90) significant financial assistance. washington, d.c. W W W.BUILDERONLINE.COM ja n ua ry 2 0 0 9 BUILDER ■ 89 http://WWW.BUILDERONLINE.COM
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