Builders rose after Lennar Corp.’s fourth-quarter orders and revenue beat estimates, even as home prices fell in the quarter.

Lennar shares jumped as much as 5.4% in early Wednesday trading, the most since March 27. The S&P Supercomposite Homebuilding Index rose as much as 2.9% to the highest since Dec. 12, with top gainers including M/I Homes Inc., which got an upgrade earlier, William Lyon Homes, Century Communities Inc. and Toll Brothers Inc.

Bouygues Bâtiment Ile-de-France and Bouygues Energies & Services, two subsidiaries of Bouygues Construction, are building the $289-million Issy Coeur de Ville under development in Issy-les-Moulineaux, near Paris. Envisioned as an eco-neighborhood, the 1,076,391-sq-ft project aims to provide residents an “environmentally responsible lifestyle.” The development is a connected block, located in the heart of Issy-les-Moulineaux. It will focus on pedestrian traffic and will be heavily landscaped. Designed by architect Valode & Pistre, the mixed-used development will consist of five residential buildings, including a retirement home, three office buildings and a range of civic amenities that include a school complex, a day-care center and a community hall. The development will also feature 182,986 sq ft of retail, restaurants and a seven-screen multiplex cinema.

After years of community input and numerous permitting hurdles, the Gateway at Millbrae Station development has started construction. Located next to San Francisco International Airport (SFO) and Bay Area Rapid Transit’s (BART) Millbrae Station, the 17-acre mixed-used development will feature a Marriott-branded hotel, office space, residential, and significant retail installments. The entire complex is slated for completion in 2025.

Manufacturing data released Tuesday made two things clear: The Federal Reserve might be powerless to prevent the negative effects of the trade war from hurting economic growth, but it still has the juice to boost the housing market.

The ISM Manufacturing Index report showed that industrial activity in the U.S. plunged in September, the sixth straight monthly decline, to the lowest since the Great Recession ended in June 2009. But the silver lining is that the Fed's efforts are showing up in recent housing data, including Tuesday's construction spending report, with activity continuing to perk up after several sluggish quarters.

There is a mountain of research and discussion around the differences in generational value sets, work ethic and motivational drivers. Where this intersects with skilled trade work, there is a diminishing reservoir of the talent and passion that will build the next generation of schools, hospitals, courthouses and other traditional infrastructure.

In short, more people are leaving the trades than coming in. But, far worse (and rarely discussed) is the internal poverty this will bring to the reservoir of character, creativity and true satisfaction that companies will need foster if they are to endure in the decades to come. The mass migration from physical jobs to intellectual ones—while largely a positive trend—carries some damaging side effects to individuals and corporations if not intentionally managed at the organizational level.

Reprinted courtesy of Jeremiah Hayes, Construction Executive, a publication of Associated Builders and Contractors. All rights reserved.

Lu Ying recently co-founded Future Urban Living to explore sustainable solutions for businesses and cities in the Circular Economy through design thinking. Lu gave a great keynote speech at WDBE 2019 in Helsinki. We continue the discussion in this interview.

Building the nonprofit Fisher House Foundation’s two 16-bedroom houses—where military and veterans’ families can stay free of charge while a loved one is receiving care at the James J. Peters Veterans Affairs Medical Center in the Bronx—was no typical homebuilding effort. It required considerable logistical skill thanks to challenging site conditions.

The five finalists of an international design competition for affordable infill housing on scattered “sliver” sites, owned by New York City, are currently entering a capacity building phase with the city to convert their designs into viable development proposals. The city expects to assemble development teams early next year, receive their proposals next spring and make selections by next fall.

The YIMBY movement is definitely on to something: In many parts of the world it is too difficult to build new housing. The result is that lower-income individuals are priced out of some of the world’s most productive cities, such as San Francisco and London, because of exorbitant rents.

Fifth Wall employed an unusual strategy to raise its second venture fund: It got rival real estate companies to pool resources to invest in property-technology startups.

Los Angeles-based Fifth Wall said Wednesday that it closed the $503 million fund by bringing together mall owners, hotel companies and office developers. Four major U.S. homebuilders invested in the fund -- D.R. Horton Inc., Lennar Corp., PulteGroup Inc. and Toll Brothers Inc. -- as well as competing brokerages CBRE Group Inc. and Cushman & Wakefield Plc.

The opposition Labour Party took aim at one of the U.K.’s most controversial land-ownership rules, proposing to end a system that can leave some homeowners paying rent each year on the ground beneath their buildings.

So-called leaseholders, who own a house or flat but not the plot underneath, would have the right to buy that land for no more than 1% of the property’s value under Labour’s plan. The “ground rent” they pay each year to owners of the land beneath their buildings would also be capped, and the sale of new private leasehold homes would be stopped.