Free Republic

NIMBYism has dominated housing policy for the last ten years. Will the 2020s be any better? A lot of things happened in the past 10 years. A boom in housing construction was not one of them. The 2010s will go down as a decade of historically low housing starts, resulting in higher home prices and rents for some and longer commutes for others. Last week, Freddie Mae Deputy Chief Economist Len Keifer tweeted out a graph comparing new housing starts over the past six decades. The results are startling. In the past 10 years, construction started for 9.8 million new...

Hiring Richard Dugas as the top executive at PulteGroup was “perhaps the biggest mistake of my career,” the founder of the Atlanta homebuilder said Monday. Bill Pulte, the company’s former chairman and largest shareholder, said in a letter to the company’s board of directors that many of the company’s talented employees had left or been fired during Dugas’ tenure as CEO, and that its financial performance has stagnated. He also criticized the company’s 2009 merger with rival Centex Corp. as the industry was still struggling with the real estate market’s crash. Dugas “must take responsibility for PulteGroup’s overly aggressive land...

3D castle printed by Andrey Rudenko in Shorewood, Minnesota as seen at the end of August 2014. The castle is about 3.5 metres high.People have used 3D printers to print everything from medical devices to guns. But one Minnesota man is hoping to take this new technology to the next level and print a house. Andrey Rudenko, of Shorewood, Min., plans for the house to be about 10 metres by 20 metres. If it is two storeys, it will be about 3,600 square feet. And he is hoping to print the entire house in about a week. It would be...

The National Association of Homebuidlers (NAHB) released their homebuilder confidence index this morning and it rose to 57, far above the expectation of 51. A reading above 50 indicates optimism (expansion). nahbconfid When we compare the NAHB optimism index to home prices, we can see one of the causes of optimism. loanhpihomebconfif Is the source of NAHB confidence and/or house price growth a surge in mortgage lending (as in the last decade) or is it a continuation of cash buyers? According according to today’s Market Pulse report from CoreLogic, cash is still king. clcash And cash prices for housing have...

In the fall of 2011 the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) submitted Freedom of Information requests to the Department of Labor and the Internal Revenue Service following an announcement that the administration was investigating homebuilders in an attempt to bolster union membership at the expense of housing sector jobs. “In a letter [from the Labor Department] cited by The [Wall Street] Journal,” wrote Crain’s Detroit at the time “homebuilders were asked to immediately turn over the names, addresses, Social Security numbers, pay rates and hours worked for all employees over the past two years. The letter from the Labor...

According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), housing affordability dropped in the last month because of house price increases and slightly increasing mortgage rates. But thanks to The Fed, mortgage rates are around 3.5% (30 year fixed) and is tipping the scale towards owning a home rather than renting. There is growing confidence among homebuilders (still below 50%). However, it dipped down in the last reading. Notice that both mortgage purchase applications (yellow line) and homebuilder confidence (white line) peaked in 2005 and began falling (although mortgage purchase applications rallied in mid 2007). Then the wheels came off. Here...

In an interview with Bloomberg Friday morning Bob Toll, CEO of Toll Brothers, says the housing market is “coming back”. He sees the pressures in real estate alleviating as consumers rebound and government programs help boost up the market. Toll says we’re on the verge of a “serious good time”: I don’t see prices going down any longer. I think you’re gonna see them start to go up. As they accelerate we’ll get closer to a serious good time again, but we’re not there yet. Despite this, the Toll Brothers CEO has dumped hundreds of millions in stock and company...

Miami, FL (AHN) - The nation's third largest homebuilder, Lennar Corp., on Monday reported a third quarter loss of nearly $172 million. It was the company's 10th consecutive quarter of losses. The per-share loss was 97 cents, a jump from the 56-cent loss of a year ago. Analysts had estimated a loss of between 51 and 52 cents a share Some 76 cents per share of the losses were linked to valuation adjustments, non-cash deferred tax asset valuation allowance and other write-offs, Lennar said. The company's homebuilding revenue fell in the quarter to $643.6 million, a drop of 42 percent....

HORSHAM, Pa., — Toll Brothers Inc. says it lost $472.3 million in its fiscal third quarter, as the luxury homebuilder took a large tax hit. But while Toll Brothers' results were worse than analysts expected, the company is seeing signs of improvement in the industry. The builder said Thursday it lost $2.93 a share in the three months ended July 31. That compares with a loss of $29.3 million, or 18 cents a share, the same period last year. Toll Brothers sold 792 homes with revenue totaling $461.4 million. Those results were down 36 percent and 42 percent, respectively, from...

The number of U.S. homebuyers who agreed to purchase a previously occupied home in April posted the largest monthly jump in nearly eight years, a sign that sales are finally coming to life after a long and painful slump. The National Association of Realtors said Tuesday its seasonally adjusted index of sales contracts signed in April surged 6.7 percent to 90.3, far exceeding analysts' forecasts. It was the biggest monthly jump since October 2001, when pending sales rose 9.2 percent. "This is yet another positive indication that the bottoming process is forming," Jennifer Lee, an economist at BMO Capital Markets,...

After being widely derided for being asleep at the switch while folks like Bernard Madoff gradually stole tens of billions of dollars from unwitting clients, the SEC is now targeting subprime lenders, hedge funds and home builders. Imagine what kind of mixer that group would throw! From a BuilderOnline.com story: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which has been roundly chided for not uncovering several high-profile investment fraud schemes, is getting more aggressive. It now has launched a series of investigations focusing on subprime lenders, hedge funds, and home builders.“The SEC is fully committed to addressing the [economic] crisis,”...

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- President Barack Obama's plan to scale back the popular mortgage-interest deduction, a sacred cow of the U.S. housing market, drew a scathing response from two powerful lobby groups. The National Association of Home Builders and the National Association of Realtors issued statements condemning the proposal in withering terms Thursday, after it was unveiled earlier in the day as part of the White House's fiscal 2010 budget blueprint. NAR President Charles McMillan also sent a letter to Obama to criticize the idea. "There is never a good time to propose something that undermines the basic foundation of homeownership,...

The McMansion is dying, and Mandy Multerer is helping to kill it. "People say times are changing," said Multerer, a marketing director for K. Hovnanian Homes, which is doing a brisk business selling smaller un-mansions. "It's just like people don't need that giant SUV, but instead buy a smaller car," she said. "It is the same with houses." With that, she as much as delivered a eulogy for the McMansion — the 1990s-style monument to suburban excess. The median size of a new Twin Cities home will drop 11 percent to 2,300 square feet in 2009, according to the Builders...

Toll Brothers (TOL) just lowered the bar for the home building industry. Horsham, Penn.-based Toll this week started offering a 3.99% fixed mortgage rate for loans $417,000 or below for 30 years with no points, one of - if not the - industry's lowest rates, one well below the national average of just below 5%. It's too early to say if other builders will copy the attention-grabbing rate, but as the market worsens, competition is fierce and this move could launch a scramble to match [rates]

Homebuilders are asking for up to $150 billion in the economic stimulus package being drafted by President-elect Obama’s administration and congressional Democrats. The National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB) is working with 80 of its members to lobby lawmakers on their plan, which includes a mortgage foreclosure reduction effort, a homebuyer tax credit and a temporary program to reduce interest rates. “This ain’t the time to be subtle. There is not a congressman or senator on the Hill who is looking forward to talking to you," NAHB Chief Executive Officer Jerry Howard told homebuilders at a meeting Wednesday morning. Democrats have...

TAMPA, FL -- More than six decades and 350,000 homes later, the Tampa-based Jim Walter Homes is shutting down all of its offices. Owned by Walter Industries, that company will still operate, with its headquarters remaining in Tampa. Meanwhile, the announcement Tuesday morning meant 230 people are losing their jobs. 45 employees live in the Tampa Bay Area. Two Florida offices - one in Tallahassee, the other in Panama City - are closing down. The others are in Louisiana, Georgia, Texas, Alabama, New Mexico, Oklahoma, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Mississippi. Spokesman Michael Monahan said Jim Walter Homes started seeing...

When Fairway Oaks was developed eight years ago, it was praised by HUD Secretary Mel Martinez as "an excellent example of the public sector and private sectors working together to develop decent and affordable housing," said Martinez. "'Sweat equity' programs, like Habitat for Humanity, help more and more low-income families open the door to homeownership." Sweat equity. Right. Now Habitat for Humanity, the "darling of liberal social activists," is being sued for sloppiness and a reckless disregard for the consequences of building on top of uncompressed garbage. 85 residents, dissatisfied at the quality of their free lodgings paid for by...

In his 35 years as a home builder, Bobby Lunceford earned plenty of accolades. Kennesaw Citizen of the Year in 2000, home builder of the year in 2003 and outstanding Georgian, according to a resolution approved by state lawmakers in 2004. None of that mattered, however, when Lunceford tried to work with five banks to save his business, Bob Lunceford Properties, after home sales plummeted. He asked the banks to suspend loan payments until his homes sold, at which time the loans would be paid off. Instead, “the instant we ran out of money all but one bank began foreclosure...

Pulte Homes applauds President Bush for signing into law today a comprehensive housing bill passed earlier by Congress. With record amounts of housing inventory and stagnant consumer demand continuing to drive down prices nationwide, Pulte Homes believes the $7,500 tax credit for first-time homebuyers included in the legislation can provide a much-needed shot in the arm to the housing industry. "We expect the $7,500 tax credit to get more first-time homebuyers off the sidelines and into a home," said Richard J. Dugas, Jr., president and CEO of Pulte Homes. "That, in turn, will free up home sellers who can then...