Homebuilding research operation rescued:
Another potential casualty of the housing crash has been rescued from the brink of extinction.
A private homebuilding foundation will take over the Construction Industry Research Board, which has been compiling building statistics in California since 1974, with data going back to just after World War II.
The California Homebuilding Foundation in Sacramento announced Monday that it agreed to take over building permit data collection and reporting from the Building Industry Association of Southern California.
The Burbank-based nonprofit research group collects building permit reports from 525 California cities and counties to produce monthly reports on construction activity used by university researchers, the news media as well as the building industry to track how much building is going on.