Housing Industry in America Essay Example for Free

Housing Industry in America Essay The American housing industry forms a vital component of the American economy as homes are the basic necessity for everyone. The industry offers jobs for various people from different professions including carpenters, masons, architects, engineers, technicians, interior designers, civil engineers, designers, artists, etc. The entire industry is distributed over several small companies rather than one single large company. However, in the US, there have been several mergers and acquisitions of the smaller companies recently. Most of the people in the US actually live in homes or apartments constructed by the housing industry and hence they have a huge stake in the market. The American housing industry constructs variety of homes including apartments, townhouses, single-family house, custom-build house, etc. A small number of people in the US actually live in houses build by themselves. Most of the houses constructed in the US are build on-site and a fewer number are fabricated in the factory and late transported to their actual site. The construction material used in various areas of the US is also different based on the geographic requirements, local resources available, etc. It may be cheaper and easier to build homes in one region of the US compared to another. Besides, the material used by the housing industry has changed over the last century since the housing industry came into picture. Earlier the housing industry used a lot of wood, asbestos, tiles, and lead-rich paint. Today the construction industry is using greater amount of concrete, steel and plastics (Muldin, 2008). Due to the recent recession and economic slowdown, the housing industry in the US has experienced a significant drop of about 3. 1 %. In more than 43 states the cost of homes has dropped by about 8 %. One of the main reasons for this is the difficultly for consumers to pay loans and mortgages (Muldin, 2008).