Do you have a long-term strategic plan in place? The remodeling market has enjoyed so many great years in a row, it would be understandable if many of you didn't. After all, who needs a plan when the phone has been ringing off the hook with leads, and backlogs have never been longer than they are right now? Unless you've been living in a cave, you already know that the U.

Energy efficiency. Resource conservation. Green. These are the hot marketing buzzwords in new home construction. What do they mean to the professional remodeler? Potentially, they could mean a new market. You can help make any existing home green, and help your clients come to grips with soaring energy costs.

If you're like most remodelers, you've been so busy in 2006 you've hardly had time to plan for next year let alone the next three years. The remodeling industry flourished in 2006, and the next three years will bring more growth for the industry, says Gopal Ahluwalia, staff vice president for research at the NAHB.

Experts predict 2007 will be a year marked by transition. "After three or four years of very strong growth, we are entering a transition period for the industry," says Kermit Baker, director of the Remodeling Futures Program at Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Tis project was unique in that it involved a bachelor who didn't want to blow out the space with the latest, most efficient gadgets yet sill needed a warm, functional space that blended well with adjacent room in his 1960s ranch home.

There's a right way and a wrong way to drive a condo conversion. Just ask Michelle Brown. An experienced Chicago real-estate broker now with Rubloff Residential Properties, she and a colleague snatched up a foreclosure property in 2004 — a 1917-vintage six-flat apartment building — planning to convert it to eight condos.

Teaming up with the burgeoning number of local, state, and national green building programs, remodelers have an opportunity to spread the word that the rewards of green remodeling can be significant without taking a bite out of the bottom line and while differentiating themselves from competition.

Green remodeling is an ever-changing process with innovations in building science and technology affecting it constantly. To do it successfully, one needs to educate crews, subcontractors and consumers.

Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies' Remodeling Futures Program has released its list of the fastest growing remodeling markets based on 2005 permit values. Analysis of 2005 remodeling permit trends shows sizeable growth in permit value for most major metro areas, with many of the fastest-growth areas concentrated along the east coast.

Whether your craftsmen are employees or trade partners, it's always a challenge to find and keep talented, reliable people. Tom: One of the top challenges we have today is how to maintain good craftsmen. Mostly we're going to talk about production people and today's challenges of labor, whether or not they're employees or subcontractors.