California housing market shortage presents opportunity for new builders and SPF insulation
Research from the past several months has shown a shortage in the California housing market, with home sales down 14 percent compared to the average month across the last 30 years. It’s not just California either. In the spring, the National Association of Realtors reported the supply of homes across the United States at the lowest level since the group began keep tabs on inventory almost 20 years ago.
Fewer homes on the market creates an opportunity for builders to distinguish themselves by ensuring their new homes are energy efficient and meet the needs and desires of today’s home buyers.
Building new homes means deciding what products and materials to use in the construction. And with the latest regional trade show, PCBC, starting this week, it’s a great time to focus on the benefits of spray polyurethane foam (SPF) insulation. With building energy codes trending toward more energy efficiency over time, it’s more important than ever to look toward building materials that can help to meet these increasingly rigorous standards.
SPF is a high quality, versatile insulation product that can be added to a new home or installed during a renovation or retrofit job. It is a multi-purpose product that insulates and acts as an air barrier. Certain types of spray foam can act as a vapor barrier, weather barrier, or even as a sound barrier. SPF has been shown to reduce energy consumption needs, help prevent allergens and some sources of moisture from entering a building where it is applied, and provide additional building strength. SPF can do all of these things while offering design creativity and flexibility.
In fact, SPF was featured in one of the winners of this year’s U.S. Department of Energy’s Race to Zero Student Design Competition. The team from Georgia Tech, the first-place winner in the small multifamily housing contest, used SPF in their design.
You can find all this information and more on our newly redesigned WhySprayFoam.org.
So as we participate in this year’s PCBC, we’ll be answering questions and raising awareness about the benefits of using SPF and encouraging our friends and colleagues to visit the revamped WhySprayFoam.org.
The Spray Foam Coalition (SFC) was formed in December 2010 under the American Chemistry Council’s Center for Polyurethanes Industry (CPI).
