Builders Choose First Female Senior Officer : Former HUD Official Now in Line to Become President of National Trade Assn. in 1989

Just when most of the reporters covering the 42nd annual convention/exposition of the National Assn. of Home Builders had given up hope that any major news would come out of the four-day event, the male-dominated board of directors surprised everyone by electing its first woman senior officer.

On the final day of the convention, the board of directors chose Shirley McVay Wiseman of Lexington, Ky., and Marco Island, Fla., over Laguna Beach builder David Young as 1986 vice president/secretary of the 138,000-member trade association.

In the normal course of events, Wiseman will become the first woman president of the builder organization in 1989. In addition to more than 20 years experience as a builder and real estate broker, Wiseman served for more than a year, beginning in 1983, as deputy assistant director for single-family housing at the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

She was president of the Home Builders Assn. of Lexington (Ky.) in 1975 and was named 1980 Builder of the Year by the Home Builders Assn. of Kentucky.

David C. Smith, a McDowell, Va., builder, was elected 1986 president of the association, succeeding John J. Koelemij of Tallahassee, Fla. James M. Fischer Jr., Nashville, Tenn., and Dale Stuard of Newport Beach, moved up to first vice president and vice president/treasurer, respectively. Fischer will become president in 1987, and Stuard in 1988.

The convention ran smoothly on this first of three annual runs in Dallas; it attracted an estimated 60,000 persons, continuing the good-news trends of the past few years for the building industry. Exhibits of about 1,000 products and services covered about 360,000 square feet--the equivalent of more than seven football fields--on various levels of the massive and often confusing Dallas Convention Center.

With the major exceptions of the depressed markets in the Pacific Northwest, many Midwestern states and the “oil patch” states of Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Texas, builders around the nation are prospering, incoming President Smith said.

Last year was a very good year for housing, especially considering that the recovery from the recession of 1980-82 is mature to the point of ripeness. National housing starts totaled 1.73 million, just 1% below the 1.75 million recorded in 1984, according to Michael Sumichrast, chief economist of the builder group.

He predicted a slight decline this year--to 1.62 million starts, but single-family housing starts should top the 1 million mark for the fourth year in a row.

“The problem in 1986 will be the multifamily sector, both rental and condominium,” Sumichrast said. “The current rental market will be difficult to sustain because of the anticipated decline in tax-exempt bond financing and the great uncertainty over proposed tax reform legislation.”

He was blunt about the poor showing of condominiums in much of the country, calling sales “lousy” for more than two years. In a survey conducted among 610 builders attending the convention, 60% of the respondents said that they were now building for the move-up market, with 63% saying they would be building for that market rather than for first-time buyers.

Another major growth market in the future is building for the elderly, according to the survey conducted under the direction of Kent W. Colton, executive vice president and chief executive officer of the builder group. Currently, 5% of the builders polled said they are building housing for the elderly; by the end of the decade, 14% said that they would be in this market.

With the aging of the post-World War II baby boom generation, the first-time buyer market--the fastest growth market during the 1970s and early 1980s--is expected to gradually decline through the remainder of the century.

The survey showed that 34% of the builders are constructing homes for first-time buyers; by 1990, only 21% said that they would be building starter homes.

Speaker after speaker at the convention attacked the Reagan Administration’s proposal in December to sell the Federal Housing Administration to the private sector. Typical of the speakers was David O. Maxwell, chairman of the Federal National Mortgage Assn. (Fannie Mae), who said that selling off FHA would be the same as abolishing it. He said that the idea emanated from a “cabal of anti-housing zealots” in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

The Federal Housing Administration has assumed a greater role in financing first-time housing with the tightening of underwriting guidelines at the Federal National Mortgage Assn. (Fannie Mae).

Maxwell said there have been some modifications in the stricter Fannie Mae underwriting guidelines, including better appraisal standards.

Housing Secretary Samuel Pierce retained his reputation as a man who can talk at length and say very little. Like the team player that he is, he defended the Reagan Administration, while admitting that there are those in OMB who favor “privatization” of the FHA. He added: “they are not going away.”

Pierce seemed to be saying--although no one could pin him down--that he favors keeping FHA much as it is, an agency that makes enough of a profit on its “arms-length” insurance programs to make up for the deficit on its subsidized housing programs.