The National Association of Home Builders was founded in 1942. It's an association that helps make housing policies a national priority.
The National Association of Home Builders was founded in 1942. It is an association that helps make housing policies a national priority. The Federation of the National Association of Home Builders was created so that the house building industry could be represented at the nation,
state, and local level. The Federation of National Association of Home Builders has a membership base of over 140,000 people.
The organization has a mission of improving housing affordability, availability, and choice. In order to do all of this, the association specifically attempts to carry out five different goals. The first goal is to balance regulatory, judicial, and legislative policies. The second task is to improve public appreciation and knowledge of the importance of housing, the importance of affordable housing, and the importance of those people who provide housing to others. The third goal is to be recognized as the best resource for industry and consumer information, research, technical expertise, education, and networking. The association's fourth goal is to improve the business performance of all of its members. The fifth and final goal is to have effective management of the financial, staff, and physical resources that are needed to complete the association's needs. The vision that the association is working towards is that every American could have access to affordable, decent, and safe housing and a good living environment.
The association came into being during World War II, so there were rationings and shortages of different building materials during this time. The whole industry was looked over by different federal agencies. Though the need for the whole industry to have a spokesperson had been around for a while, the urgency of the war hastened the creation of the association, which became "the voice of the housing industry." There were actually two different associations, the National Home Builders Association and the Home Builders Institute of America, and they joined forces to become the unified association of today.
After the war was finished, there was a major boom in housing, so there was a much bigger need for housing. To illustrate this point, the amount of homes that were built was almost 1.2 million, which was significantly more than the 142,000 houses built in 1944. In 1949, membership in the association grew to 14,000 and it had 120 local chapters with 35 people on the national staff. By 1952, membership was up to almost 15,000 people. Because of the growth in membership, a manual, called the "Membership Bible" was produced to guide all of the local associations in how to get more members and how to hang on to the members they had. By the time 1959 rolled around, a membership survey, which was sent to IBM for tabulation, showed that the challenges that faced builders then are similar to what they are now. One of the challenges was land at a reasonable price, high cost of construction, and the ability for people to get mortgage financing. Though, unlike today, most houses were selling for only about $13,000 or $20,000.
