When Jay Shafer first started building the little houses that would evolve into his Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, he didn’t know that he would be at the forefront of a national trend toward small homes. He simply wanted to have less impact on the environment, and to “do away with unwanted space.”
While there is a small population of homeowners who maintain their homes so that they resemble a showroom – completely clutter free, decorator gorgeous, the house equivalent of Heidi Klum — it is generally not the norm. The majority of homeowners do not.
President Barack Obama’s prime-time address on jobs didn’t focus much on housing, to the concern of some economists. Most of the housing-related attention focused on his call for more refinancing.
More than 5.6 million American taxpayers in 21,000 communities nationwide rely on the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) for flood protection. Floods claimed more lives and property than any other U.S. natural disaster over the last century.
RALEIGH – Gov. Bev Perdue announced today that 98 of the state’s 100 counties saw increases in visitor spending in 2010, including 13 counties that had double-digit increases. Data from the North Carolina Department of Commerce, Division of Tourism, Film and Sports Development showed that three counties had more than a billion dollars in visitor spending in 2010 (Mecklenburg, Wake and Guilford), while Dare, Buncombe, Forsyth, and Durham counties all had more than half a billion in spending.
