MEMBERSHIP ACROSS ALL FIVE COUNTIES

One of my primary goals, as president for 2023, is to promote growth in our outlying County Chapters.

President Becky Rieger

In this issue, our main focus is on the current housing overview county-by-county and how each is handling the challenge of the net housing need by 2045 in comparison to the median household income and how many people currently qualify for a mortgage. Unfortunately, the current trend across all five of the OMB counties is that each is already priced out in what BIAW is calling the Washington Housing Attainability Crisis. This is just another example of the importance of OMB as an association and the work we do on behalf of our Government advocacy in particular. Our work, along with BIAW, is the only hope for trying to create a more balanced market and to bring the costs of building down, at least enough to try to make housing affordable to each county's residents.

The association's volunteer members and staff's extraordinarily hard work that is put in every day, contributes greatly to the success of the building industry in our five great counties. But this can only happen with the support of membership and the growth of membership, specifically in the outlying areas. As we see massive population growth coming in those areas, we can also foresee how important our presence will be when trying to keep up with the demand to house those new residents.

It is important to remind each and every one of you that without you and your membership, we wouldn't be able to do what we do. The more members, the stronger the voice. With a more robust presence, we can make our industry thrive like never before. Imagine all we could achieve if each one of us brought in just one new member to our association. I encourage you to think about this the next time you are combing through your contact list. When you see anyone you feel would benefit from the value of a membership with OMB, become a part of the recruiting team and refer them to staff.