Cater to Boomers or Millennials? Homebuilders Caught in Between
Las Vegas — The U.S. housing industry is being pulled in two directions. Baby boomers with big housing bucks to spend still rank at the top of many builders’ customer lists. But rising sales to millions of millennials have sent builders scrambling to tailor houses for the next generation of buyers. “Millennials are really coming into the market in significant numbers,” Dan DiClerico of Consumer Reports told homebuilders from around...
Builders Chase Millennials By Decreasing Price Scale
Surging prices almost have closed off the new-home market to young buyers like Brandon and Quincey Lindemann. But the Denver-area couple has found a way in. The Lindemanns in October paid $350,000 for a three-bedroom house at Tri Pointe Group Inc.’s Terrain, a new Castle Rock, Colo., community designed for first-time buyers. While the home has press-board kitchen counters and a yard too small for the children the Lindemanns plan to...
Business of Agriculture: Money Grows on Christmas Trees — Slowly
If there’s one piece of New Hampshire and Vermont agriculture that stands out for stability and profitability in recent years it’s the Christmas tree sector, and this year the mojo continues with solid demand on the wholesale side and expectations for continued strong consumer interest on the retail “choose and cut” side of the trade. But if there’s any worry that a lot of new production suddenly will appear to capture what seems like...
Lincoln: A Lot of SUV for a Princely Sum
The crossover segment is hot and the competition is fierce. Lincoln’s 2016 MKX will be vying for buyers against a whole batch of “X” sport utility vehicles: the BMW X5, Acura MDX, Cadillac SRX and segment leader Lexus RX. Complicating things for Lincoln, Lexus is coming out with a brand-new version of that SUV, a fourth generation of its top-selling vehicle. To score, Lincoln will have to attract two kinds of buyers. First, it will...
Women and Business: Gift Shop at DHMC Has a New Name, but Same Mission
Changes are coming to Dartmouth–Hitchcock Medical Center’s “Pink Smock” gift shop, which was started in the old hospital in Hanover in 1971, expanded at the Lebanon location and soon will include a website for easy ordering and delivery. The nonprofit shop, a program of the medical center’s volunteer services department, is staffed by more than 60 volunteer cashiers and buyers, many of them women, who are involved in “shared...
