Big Builder Online explores the management, finance, and operating concerns of America's blue-chip builders—corporations that account for more than half of all residential construction.
"I have never met a member of Congress who isn't pro housing," says Jim Tobin, whom last month the NAHB named as its new senior vice president of government affairs.
The National Association of Realtors' Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI) took a turn downward in August, falling 1.2% to 88.6 from 89.7 in July but remained 7.7% ahead of August 2010. The Realtor group said the decline was due to "mixed" regional results, driven down by a decline in the Northeast, where a hurricane knocked out the last weekend of the month for home shoppers. However, the West and Midwest also showed declines.
The Improving Markets Index is off to a good start. Launched last month by the NAHB and First American, the index—which defines "improving" as having posted gains in employment, home prices , and single-family housing permits for six consecutive months—nearly doubled its list of qualifying markets in October, growing to 23 markets, compared to 12 in September.
Hovnanian Enterprises, Inc., Red Bank, N.J. (NYSE:HOV) on Wednesday announced a series of private offerings to exchange $220 million in senior notes with maturities ranging from 2015 to 2017 for new 2.00% senior secured notes due 2021.
Lennar Corp., Miami (NYSE:LEN) on Wednesday said it hired Jay Mantz, who headed the real estate investment unit at Morgan Stanley, to join the company's Rialto Capital Land Management unit as president. Lennar also said Bill Landis, who joined Rialto in 2008 as its chief investment officer, would become COO. Both men will report to Rialto CEO Jeff Krasnoff.
BUILDER editor in chief, Denise Dersin, met up with online sales consultant Mike Lyon at PCBC to find out how builders can continue to engage their online shoppers and how to use an online lead management program to turn them from browsers into buyers.
The Two Sides of NVR--as Operator and as Bellwether
With a raft of public home building companies set to report third-quarter earnings this week and next, NVR's report last week of a third-quarter profit of $43.4 million--$7.98 EPS--is reflective of a best-of-class organization's willing position as No. 1 in its business, and its involuntary stature as a sector bellwether. In an up market, when its success is less conspicuous, NVR motors along as a public company counter-puncher. In this sustained down market, the NVR management team doesn't want to jinx itself by calling too much attention to its performance, and it wants to preserve an element of surprise as a competitor for both customers and land deals.
I've been thinking more about my blog post from last week on the continued tightness in the mortgage markets and how those constraints have been driving a steady increase in all-cash purchases of homes since 2007. In fact, in February and March 2011, those transactions, as a percentage of all known closings, hit a six-plus year high of 43%, according to data from Hanley Wood Market Intelligence (HWMI). With cash closings skyrocketing, I was curious to find out whether cash transactions were concentrated in any way. So, I asked my HWMI colleague, executive director of research Jonathan Smoke, to take a look at the data for me.
News out Thursday on initial jobless claims, second-quarter GDP and even pending home sales was not what one would call good, but it could have been far worse. The Associated Press even put out a story midday with the headline, "Economy is Showing Signs of Modest Improvement." A week earlier, things did not look so good. What changed? Besides the action by German legislators to allow the government to plow more money into a Greek bailout, not much.
Ryland Homes' move to exit Dallas and Jacksonville, Fla., markets has some builders looking ever more closely at their footprints. Do you think more public builders will exit markets this year? Tell Big Builder what you think by taking this week's survey. Click here for results of previous survey: 2011 Gut Check.
With our Housing Market Seminar for the Greater DC and Baltimore area right around the corner on September 28th, we decided to take a look at how the region's economy and housing market stack up against the rest of the country. The nation's capital has long been a stable employment market due to its political clout, high levels of education, and government and government-related industries. So it should come as no surprise that the Washington D.C. metro area is outperforming national trends in just about every housing metric, especially in recent months.
Sideways was where the housing market moved in 2010. For the 14 public builders included in BIG BUILDER's annual public builder report, it was a knockdown-dragout fight for every sale, and, as such, they were able to close collectively just 1% fewer homes in 2010 than 2009. The group took share in 2010, capturing 28.7% of the market compared with 24.8% in 2009, largely at the expense of private home builders.
