In today’s home improvement and real estate News Fix the top stories are trends in housing starts and how the Amazon rainforest may be turning into grassland.
In Business News
Housing demands outpaced 43 percent of home builders’ ability to meet them during 2021. Still, 55 percent actually built more homes in 2021 than in 2020, according to a survey by ECI.
Overall, housing starts totaled nearly 1.6 million in 2021, up 15.6 percent from 2020, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. And the number of single-family homes completed in 2021 was the highest number since 2007.
In Planet News
The Amazon rainforest could transform into grassland, according to researchers at the U.K.’s University of Exeter who studied satellite data from 1996 to 2016. They measured how the Amazon region recovered from droughts and fires. If there’s a shift to a grassy savannah, 90 billion tons of carbon dioxide stored in the Amazon’s soil and trees could be released.
Did You Know?
Women made up only 11% of the construction industry in 2021, but they are nearly half of the entire U.S. workforce. To find out more about women in construction, head over to NAWIC.org.
Do you agree with the experts about housing starts? Will the demand continue to outpace the supply? And how do you feel about the Amazon rainforest turning into grassland? Does it seem too far away to worry about?
