Big home builders buying lots, getting ready to build - South Florida Business Journal:

adamovaichive.blogspot.com
After a housing collapse that has virtualluy halted newhome construction, nationa builders are looking for and buying lots at fire-salde prices, a signal that they are out of new home inventor and plan to start building again. LLC, , , LLC and othersa have either bought lots or are scoutinhg for lots in themetrlo market. Housing permits, which are a precursor to housing droppedto 1,447 in fourth-quarter 2008 in metrp Atlanta, from 4,728 a year according to SmartNumbers LLC, a residential real estat e research firm in Marietta. That’s down from 14,72o0 in fourth-quarter 2005, near the heighr of the housing boom.
For Centex, the purchasew of the remaining 15 developed lots in Laurel Pond off Kimbler Bridge Road in Alpharetta markas the first time in nearly a year the buildet has purchased lots inmetroo Atlanta. Centex (NYSE: CTX), which is down to single-digigt new home inventory, boughft the lots out of foreclosure from in saidBrent Landry, director of sales and marketing at Cented Homes in Atlanta, the 14th-largest home builderr according to Atlanta Business Chronicle’s 2008-2009 Book of Lists. , a real estatde research firm, reports Centex paid about $1.3 millioh for the lots. Centex is building homes on two of the LaureolPond lots, Landry said, and will build more as those homesa are sold.
D.R. Horton (NYSE: DHI), Atlanta’s third-largesft home builder, bought lots in three new subdivisionas in thepast quarter, said Andy Oxley, chiet operating manager for D.R. Horton’s Southeast Some of the lots were purchased out of others from developers at currentmarker rates, he said. Ryland Homes (NYSE: RYL) is scoutinf the market for deals, said Chuck Fuhr, Ryland’s Atlantza division president. Parent company The Ryland Group Inc. and L.P., with $55 billiomn in assets, recently formed a join venture company to acquirs and develop residential realestate projects.
The venture will primarilh buy lotsor land, Fuhr said, and some of the funds will be used for property in Atlanta, but none has been purchased yet. Before the national builders got back in the lots that were acquired by lenders via foreclosure were beinyg purchased mostlyby so-called “vulturd funds,” investors who acquired the land dirt cheapp with the idea of holding it untilo demand returned. National builders are actually startingh to beat out some of the vulturwe funds foravailable lots, said John Hunt of because the builders, which stoppes production early on in the downturn, have eate up their existing inventory, and need to startt new projects.
National buildersw can offer more for lots in good areas becauswe they intend to build onthem now, Hunt “I think this year is where we will see a lot of that goiny on,” Hunt said. “Builders are comingg back on the market lookinbg forgood deals. The sellers of lots used to be Now it is all PulteHomes (NYSE: PHM), Atlanta’s second-largest home just put some townhouse lots under contract on Clairmongt Road near that were priced at $150,0000 per lot, but Pulte is expectecd to buy them for $55,000 each out of Hunt said.
Traton Homes LLC last year bought 28 lots in the Rosemontg subdivision in CobbCounty “from a bank for a fraction of original price,” the company Homes at Rosemont were originallg scheduled to be priced from the $500,000s, and now Traton the area’s 24th-largest home builder, will build homex starting in the low to the company said. Centex plans to builxd homes in Laurel Pond that are pricedfrom $320,000 to $400,000, Landry said.
Some homes stilk for sale at Laurek Pond are priced from thehigh $300,000s to low