Even as important sectors of the U.S. housing market report sustaining earlier gains, many homeowners are still underwater, observed real estate Web site Zillow. According to Zillow, Q1 2012 saw almost 16 million homeowners owing more on their mortgages than their home’s worth, a total representing nearly 33 percent of homeowners holding mortgages. Still, 90…

Mortgage rates are still dropping, albeit slowly now and not in all markets, and many are taking advantage of either the steals on the market or the very good refinancing available. The recent Mortgage Banker’s Association’s Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey revealed that mortgage refinance applications improved by 13.0 percent for the week ending on May…

“The crash is over,” declared Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics Inc. in West Chester, Pennsylvania, in an interview with bloomberg.com. “Home sales—both new and existing—and housing starts are now off the bottom.” Data released this April showcased better-than-estimated new-home sales and a deceleration in price falls, inspiring optimism that the market is truly…

A spate of construction worksite accidents in Northern New Jersey has prompted the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to enjoin construction companies to ensure that workers working six feet off the ground be properly equipped to protect them from falls. Despite OSHA training—for instance, OSHA 10 training and OSHA 30…

A Brooklyn contractor has been cited by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health (OSHA) for safety violations after a building structural collapse in Brighton Beach resulted in a worker’s death. OSHA reported that SP&K Construction was erecting a multistory building in November 2011 when the front bays of the third, fourth, and…

It’s National Cancer Survivor month this June in the United States—and you get your hair done for free! To celebrate the month, the Cancer Survivor Beauty and Support Day (CSBSD) is held every first Tuesday of June. The first CSBD was held in 2003 and since then has been growing in participants as well as…

This has been proposed before. Now, a twist has been added: there’s talk of using the Systemized Nomenclature of Medicine-Clinical Terms (SNOMED-CT) in place of or in conjunction with ICD-10, the new diagnostic coding set that has brought much controversy into the medical community because of its complexity. The American College of Physicians (ACP) has…

Amid the controversy concerning the implementation of ICD-10, Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy reported that using the new diagnostic coding set it was able to uncover a risk for seniors hitherto unrecognized by clinicians: a 42-percent increase in “falls as a cause of death” among seniors 65 and older between 1999 and…

Good news for traders and international business. ISO recently announced the publication of a new standard and a technical specification to enhance confidence between partners in B2B transactions, and to support trade regulations. The twin releases exemplify the pervasiveness of and near-universal need today for standards, but especially for ISO standards and the training associated…

How can signage be conveyed to the blind or the visually impaired and how can the solutions be uniformly manufactured from one country to the next? The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has addressed these issues by publishing a standard that provides the specifications for tactile walking surface indicators (TWSIs) and the recommendations for their…

Life insurance is the least understood insurance line among buyers. That lack of understanding, contends InsuranceHotline.com, has led many to wait too long to get coverage (until it was too late) or to pay too much (much to their regret). Unfortunately, it has also spawned a number of myths, much to the disadvantage of insurers—as…

A surprising finding has come out of a recent survey of life insurance buyers: Many individuals don’t have insurance coverage because no carrier has tried to sell them their products. Deloitte LLP, the financial advisory firm that conducted the survey, said that, in fact, even insured individuals who are interested in purchasing new coverage reported…

The latest data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) have confirmed a spring growth spurt in the housing market—certainly welcome news for the construction sector, especially among contractors who have finished their contractor’s continuing education or are already licensed, which has long been pining for a strengthening in buyer interest. Analysts said that the…

A home-construction rush across the nation appears to be happening: new-home sales touched 3.3 percent from March to April, to a seasonally adjusted 343,000-unit annual rate from a 332,000-unit pace in March, according to the Commerce Department. Observers cautioned that the pulse is nowhere near the 1.3 million sold at the crest of the housing…

For those still pooh-poohing a housing-market recovery is imminent or is already underway, a new report, this time from the U.S. Conference Board’s Demand Institute Division, says that the U.S. is in for an accelerating rental market that will lead to a housing recovery. According to “The Shifting Nature of U.S. Housing Demand” report, industry…