Shannon speaks with Andrew Over, the Marketing Vice President at Regence BlueShield, at the MBA annual Golf Tournament about the MBA Health Trust and why it's important for members to participate.

More about the MBA Health Trust

Forget your favorite tiny home hunter show for a minute—this is real life. Despite what the media tells us, homeowners and homebuilders, have only very recently begun to shrink their standards in favor of more compact confines.

In the 1990s, if you can remember back that far, about 23.2 percent of homes built were 3,000 square feet or more according to a builderonline.com article based on data taken from the Census Bureau American Housing Survey (AHS). But after the recession, square footage dropped, right? Not so much. The study, which looked at the years between 1990 and 2015, saw the number of 3,000-plus square foot homes built actually increase to 28.6 percent from 2010 to 2015. In fact, the tiny trend didn't really start picking up steam until mid-2016, when millennials and other such first-time buyers became a big enough segment to affect census numbers.

What's interesting is that the minor dent young folks and first-timers are putting in the overall evolution of expanse isn't enough yet to pull builders off course. As labor and land costs expand with our house sizes, builders are less likely to put themselves at risk, opting to operate in the higher-end housing market boasting secure returns, as opposed to taking a less calculated dip into the lower-end income pool and the smaller—dare we say ‘tiny'—household segment.

Does that mean lower-end shoppers are out of luck?

Not necessarily. Townhouse construction is on the rise, accounting for 9 percent of single-family homes from 2010-2015 (up from 6 percent during the ‘90s), and, according to the Builder article, recent data reports show townhouse construction making upwards of 12 percent of total construction in current quarters.

Will townhomes and tiny houses continue to creep into the bigger picture? Time will tell, but it's safe to say as costs continue to rise and people continue coming to hotspots like Seattle and the Puget Sound region, both builders and buyers will continue to push traditional housing boundaries and seek out less expensive, more practical means of housing.

Should be an interesting evolutionary ride.

Craving more on less? Check out Seattle's tiny home revolution.

By Lynnwood Today

It’s now much easier for 16-year-old Remy Williams to get in and out of his house.

The Williams family was one of several families to have a ramp built for free by volunteers during the Master Builders Association’s annual Rampathon event. The event allows families to apply for a new ramp to be built leading into and out of their houses to help with mobility.

Remy Williams has cerebral palsy and primarily uses a wheelchair to get around. Before the ramp, one of his parents would need to first bring the wheelchair outside, then carry Remy down a set of stairs to get him outside.

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