Posted on 02/04/2008 11:22:29 PM PST by Lorianne
As home builders feel the squeeze from the housing slump, they are aiming to save money by reducing the choices they offer to buyers.___ Coast to coast, Lennar Corp.'s potential home buyers see different scenery, but they might encounter the same kitchen faucets.
The nation's second-largest home builder is whittling down options and moving toward a one-faucet-fits-similar-price-points model, seeing standardization and simplification as tools in a cost-cutting drive aimed at saving millions of dollars and surviving the housing slump.
Other home builders are taking similar steps. Beazer Homes USA says it reduced its carpet offerings by 85%. Pulte Homes cut back to 400 floor plans from more than 2,000, and Centex cut its roughly 4,500 plans in half, and more reductions are under way.
Variety, builders have realized, costs money. That wasn't much of a problem during housing's heyday, when gross margins were as fat as 25%. Now margins are thin, and builders' stocks are in tatters; one index has them down more than 55% in the past year. Saving money has gained urgency.
"When you can raise prices every Monday morning, like it was during the boom time, it's hard to get the organization's attention on something as mundane as lowering cost," said Pulte Chief Executive Richard J. Dugas Jr.
(Excerpt) Read more at realestate.msn.com ...
Oh well.
What is interesting about that picture is that the house to the right appears to be a Craftsman home — a high point in American architecture.
My son just moved his little family into a Lowder Homes ‘cookie cutter’ model. Pretty darn nice cookies that! The floorplans are limited but the amenities are still flowing to keep people buying.
surely you jest! (frank lloyd wright is spinning in his grave) :)
Good point! Did you notice the ‘apartment building’ has a pseudo craftsman facade? Ree duck u lus! Horrid.
I’m not a fan of Wright’s Usonian houses. Talk about cookie cutter!
Ha! I didn’t notice that. Thanks for the laugh!
How about this cookie cutter election? Here’s your stainless steel liberal war hero. Here’s your stainless steel New England liberal. Or there’s always the stainless steel Southern Baptist preacher to choose from. We used to offer an upgraded less leaky conservative choice, but the race cost too much, so we had to limit your options in order to speed things along.
i'll take one of these though.
There is only one of those!
:)
I wonder if it’s still a private residence...
as to whether this one (i forget the name) is privately owned, i have no idea.
That house is called Falling Water.
Growing up in Connecticut, one of our neighbors was Anne Baxter, the actress, who’s grandfather was Wright.
She had a house that looked very much like a Wright, but it wasn’t.
I think it’s Fallingwater.
It was a vacation house for the Kaufmann family until it was donated to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy in 1963. Major structural reinforcement was done in 2001-2003, with the retensioning and reanchoring of the sagging cantilevered concrete beams, at a cost of some $11 million.
Extensive waterproofing was also installed, but because of the site's dampness and some of the deficiencies in the original design (such as the lack of roof flashing and internal drains), the maintenance contractors, and their descendants, have got jobs for life.
That is an interesting house. Can I fit my family of five in there? How much did that house cost I wonder? The savings on going smaller would outweigh the inconvenience for my wife and three kids.../sarc.
It looks to be about the size of my master bedroom.
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