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Tag Archives: economy

Lumber Prices Show Unseasonable Drop

lumber prices

Though lumber prices usually rise in the spring, a new report from The Wall Street Journal says bad weather and a decline in homebuilding have caused lumber prices to drop just one year after they reached record highs. The article …

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U.S. Economy Grows 3.2% in Q1 2019

U.S. Economy

The U.S. Department of Commerce announced that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) had risen by an annual rate of 3.2 percent in the first quarter of 2019, according to The New York Times. GDP is the “broadest measure of …

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Federal Changes to Housing Affordability

housing

Homeownership benefits home improvement retailers for clear reasons, including the fact that homeowners maintain and upgrade their houses with products retailers sell. Buying, though, is more difficult than it used to be, due to high prices and a limited number …

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Q&A: A Perspective on Home Sales, Remodeling and Construction

housing

Paul Bishop is the vice president of research for the National Association of Realtors® and leads the research division’s survey and market research activities, which include analyzing real estate business and policy issues. He took questions from Hardware Retailing magazine about the …

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Retail and Manufacturing Lead 2018 Hiring Boom

hiring

Heading into 2018, economists expected hiring to slow due to a tight labor market, as a below-4 percent unemployment rate would make finding workers difficult for businesses. According to The Wall Street Journal, “the opposite has occurred, largely due to …

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Home Renovations Contribute to Retail Hiring

economic concerns renovations

Trends in home renovations have contributed to recent growth in the number of new retail jobs in the U.S., the Chicago Tribune reports. “Building-material stores hired more than 10,000 workers in February to keep up with booming demand,” the news …

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