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New-home sales plummeted by nine percent in November from October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 647,000 according to a report released by the Department of Commerce and the Department of Housing and Urban Development on Friday. November's numbers are the worst showing since April 1995...
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Dec. 30, 2007: A Florida luxury builder files for Chapter 7; Dominion's top executive resigns; home prices hit a record low; and a new Arizona Immigration law will soon take affect. BUILDER Online catches you up with the news you might have missed.
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After closing its doors in April and failing to sell its remaining inventory, Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.-based Panitz Signature Homes has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in the Jacksonville division of the Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida. The luxury builder listed $18.4...
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Builders are getting better at providing service after closing, but what happens when the warranty runs out?
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Dominion Homes announced late last week that the company's board of directors appointed Douglas G. Borror as president and William G. Cornely to COO effective Dec. 31. Jeffrey Croft, the currently president and COO, is leaving the Dublin, Ohio-based builder to "pursue other interests."
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Single-family, existing-home prices fell 6.7 percent in the nation's 10 largest cities in October from the same period in 2006 according to the Standard & Poor's S&P/Case-Shiller home price index, which was released Tuesday morning. The index also revealed that prices fell 6.1 percent in 20 U.S...
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One of the biggest problems for builders today is the age-old one of standing out in a market littered with homes for sale, many of them steeply discounted. Cheryl O'Connor, vice president of sales and marketing for Warmington Homes' Northern California Division, managed to do that in a big way by...
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Business groups and pro-immigration forces were dealt a blow Friday afternoon when a federal judge denied a request for a temporary restraining order on the state's new immigration law, a move that paved the way for the law to go into effect Jan. 1. Under the law, builders and other businesspeople...
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Dec. 23, 2007: Hovnanian is hit with big losses; builder confidence remains low; and permits and starts continue to slide. BUILDER Online catches you up with the news you might have missed.
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Placing the blame for the housing recession squarely at the feet of the mortgage market meltdown, NAHB CEO Jerry Howard and chief economist David Seiders warned of another bleak year for housing in 2008, during the NAHB's year-end Housing Forecast call on Thursday. Exacerbating the situation is the...
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The Greater Atlanta Home Builders Association has completed the first phase of its Get Home Atlanta ad campaign, an effort launched this fall to persuade people that now is a good time to buy a new home. Through widespread local and some national media coverage, free and discounted advertising, and...
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Prices for finished lots in the Antelope Valley and Inland Empire areas of southern California are now significantly below what developers and owners were asking two years ago, and in some markets prices have fallen to levels not seen since 2002, according to a report released this week. Some...
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The past 24 hours haven't been kind to Hovnanian Enterprises. Tuesday night, the builder reported a fourth quarter net loss of $469 million. On Wednesday morning, around the time Hovnanian shares were falling on Wall Street, its CEO, Ara K. Hovnanian, told analysts in a conference call that...
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In what has been a tumultuous year for foreclosures nationwide, there finally is some good news-even if it ends up being short-lived. Foreclosure activity (default notices, auction sale notices, and bank repossessions) was down 10 percent in November, according to a report released Wednesday by...
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New Jersey-based home builder Hovnanian Enterprises is reporting a fourth quarter loss (from the period ending Oct. 31) of $467 million, or $7.42 a share, compared to a loss of $117.93 million in the same quarter last year. Tuesday night's report is the builder's fifth consecutive quarterly loss.
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Housing starts dropped in November, and permits for future construction slid to a 14-year low, according to a report released Tuesday by the Department of Commerce and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
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Government continues to react to the turmoil in the mortgage market. The latest to take action is the Federal Reserve, which voted unanimously to endorse a new set of regulations aimed at protecting homeowners from abusive lending practices. The new guidelines range from a ban on low-documentation...
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Noting that mortgage issues and excess inventory continue to impact home builders, the NAHB today announced that its Housing Market Index held steady in December, at a record-low of 19. The NAHB/Wells Fargo HMI tracks builder perceptions and expectations of current and future single-family home...
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With California facing a budget deficit of up to $14 billion, a shortfall caused largely by the subprime mortgage meltdown and subsequent housing slump, home builders in the state want to help the legislature get the housing industry moving again.
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The U.S. Senate arrived late to the party but they got there. On the heels of response to the turmoil in the mortgage market from the White House, the Fed, and the House of Representatives, the Senate passed legislation that would overhaul how the Federal Housing Administration operates.
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Dec. 16, 2007: The Fed chips in; HOPE NOW hotline operators are kept busy; Centex battles SE Florida sales slump; and the NAHB says no to Fannie Mae.
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The NAHB's top executive blasted mortgage lender Fannie Mae for the government-sponsored group's plan to impose a 25-basis-point surcharge on all new mortgages that it backs or purchases after March 1, 2008. Jerry Howard, the NAHB's president and CEO, called the new surcharge a "broad tax on...
Two builders, two developers, and a remodeler received the first Livable Communities Awards, presented by the National Association of Home Builders and AARP. The awards, presented Dec. 11 in Washington, recognize homes and communities that are well designed, safe, comfortable, and accessible...
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After a federal judge last week threw out a lawsuit contesting Arizona's new immigration law, an umbrella organization representing about a dozen business groups filed a new lawsuit and requested a temporary restraining order.
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While it probably doesn't qualify as a trend yet, some municipalities are more receptive to rezoning land that had been earmarked for new-home construction to be used instead for commercial and industrial development. A quick search of recent news stories around the country finds landowners in...
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The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has sided with the Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA) in forcing Beazer Homes to disclose more information about its mortgage investments. LIUNA had sought a shareholder resolution on Beazer's proxy that would require the disclosure.
The FBI is setting up a mortgage fraud task force in its Washington, D.C., field office according to a recent report in theThe FBI is setting up a mortgage fraud task force in its Washington, D.C., field office according to a recent report in the Washington Post. The task force, which is one of 34...
Citing a need for eco-friendly doors, the manufacturer has introduced a line of doors made from salvaged materials. Each door is made from reclaimed glulam, stile-and-rail cores that are overlaid with recycled Douglas fir. Doors are available in one-, two-, or three-panel designs and come in...
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Last week, the Bush administration unveiled initiatives designed to battle the worsening mortgage crisis, including a voluntary interest rate freeze for subprime mortgages. In the days immediately following the administration's announcement, the HOPE Hotline (888-995-HOPE), which was established to...
Your buyers could use an unbecoming waterproof radio in the shower, or you could install these ultra-cool SoundTile speakers instead. The waterproof coaxial speakers are housed in a 4-inch-by-4-inch escutcheon with a stainless steel front grill. A hole on the lower side of the escutcheon allows...
Designed for furred-out masonry walls, M-Shield is a paperless multilayer reflective insulation that reduces the potential for mold and mildew growth by eliminating the cellulose in the insulation. The company says the Class A firerated product also breathes to allow vapor transfer. Cost: 30...
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Cutting the Fed Funds Rate and the discount rate 25 basis points on Tuesday were not enough to satisfy Wall Street, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, NASDAQ, and the S&P 500 all fell by more than 2 percent in the wake of the Federal Reserve Board's rate cut announcement. But investors and...
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"Not only don't things slow down in December, but there's a sense of urgency to fill jobs in many cases," says Tim Jones, vice president of human resources for Ixia, a communications technology test systems maker based in Calabasas, Calif. Even though you may have heard otherwise, don't drop out of...
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In a move to stave off a recession that some economists are giving a 60 percent chance to occur in the coming months, the Federal Reserve Board today announced a 25-basis point cut to the Fed Funds Rate. At Tuesday's Federal Open Market Committee meeting, the group's final meeting for 2007, the Fed...
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The Washington-based Steel Framing Alliance has released a new publication that offers guidance to builders who are interested in using steel framing in their homes. Its purpose is to shorten builders' learning curves by providing basic information about steel framing.
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When the much-anticipated film version of "The Kite Runner" opens in movie theaters on Friday, the credits will list Bruce Toll, vice chairman of Toll Brothers, as co-executive producer. For the past two years, Toll--who as of last March owned about 6 percent of Toll Brothers' outstanding...
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A subprime relief plan that will freeze interest rates for subprime borrowers who meet certain requirements was announced on Thursday by the Bush administration. Under the plan, mortgage servicers would agree to the five-year rate freeze voluntarily. The plan will apply to subprime adjustable...
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It appears that no one is exempt from the turmoil in the housing industry. Horsham, Pa.-based Toll Brothers is reporting its first quarterly loss in its 21 years as a publicly traded company--a net loss of $81.8 million for the quarter compared to a profit of $173.8 million in the same quarter last...
Florida builders got a bit of good news this week. A new study reports that British and Irish citizens now own nearly 4 million properties overseas -- worth nearly $90 million -- and the market is forecast to grow at an annual rate of more than 13 percent between now and 2012. The study, the...
Jim Hughes, co-owner of Wheaton, Ill.–based Wiseman-Hughes Enterprises, used to meet his friend, Buz Hoffman, president of Lakewood Homes, for lunch two or three times a year. But lately, they've had time to get together more frequently, because Chicagoland's usually unflappable housing market has...
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Dec. 9, 2007: Bush announces a subprime relief plan; Lennar's dealings may land the builder a leg up; another first-an earnings loss for Toll Brothers; Pulte Homes prepares to bolt K.C.; and home foreclosures hit a new record. BUILDER Online catches you up with the news you might have missed.
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Lennar's sale of 11,000 lots in seven states to Morgan Stanley, which the two companies agreed to a week ago, will bolster the giant builder's cash flow, provide tax benefits, and possibly improve its stock price. But it's unlikely that the $525 million Lennar-Morgan pact will become a model for...
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Low sales and a tumultuous housing sector have forced Pulte Homes to begin an exit of the Kansas City market. More than 20 employees will be laid off just days before Christmas as the first stages of the 10-month exit begins.
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The White House and members of the mortgage industry have ironed out a deal that will freeze interest rates for certain subprime loans for five years according to multiple media reports. A joint announcement by President Bush, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Housing and Urban Development (HUD)...
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The Florida HBA said yesterday it will appeal a recent federal ruling that upheld the city of Tallahassee's inclusionary zoning program. The builders maintained that the law, passed in 2005, constituted a physical taking of property without just compensation, violated due process, and imposed an...
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The top financial official at WCI Communities is hopeful that the builder of luxury tower and condos units will be able to work out its interest payment agreements with the company's major banks and move forward into 2008 with increased financial flexibility.
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Standard Pacific Homes expects to continue reducing its land position next year at prices that, in some outlying markets, might require heavy discounts in order to attract buyers. Andrew Parnes, CFO for the Irvine, Calif.-based builder, told investors at the Banc of America Securities Credit...
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Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson revealed some of the particulars of the Bush administration's solution to the subprime crisis at the Office of Thrift Supervision National Housing Forum Monday morning. The remarks came just days after Paulson met with the members of the mortgage industry...
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Melbourne, Fla.-based Holiday Builders this month is building three models at Beaver Dam Crossing, a community in Stone County, Miss., near Biloxi, where Holiday plans to build 396 homes. Kim Shelpman, Holiday's president, says her company expects to start selling homes at Beaver Dam in February...
Deirdre Irwin, the coordinator of the Florida Water Star program for the St. Johns River Water Management District in Palatka, Fla., says she's probably the only person who's happy about the slump in the housing market. That's because it's given builders the time to participate in Water Star, a...
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Dec. 2, 2007: The Bush administration and the Hope Now Coalition are forging a subprime solution; consumer spending in October is sluggish; foreclosures are up 94 percent from October 2006; and a Florida builder is accused of running pot farms. BUILDER Online catches you up with the news you might...
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Rumors are swirling around Capitol Hill that the Bush administration and representatives from the mortgage industry are feverishly working on a plan that would freeze the interest rate for subprime loans, essentially providing a life raft for more than two million Americans with adjustable...
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Personal income in the U.S. rose by two-tenths of 1 percent in October, a slower rate than most economists had predicted and another indication that troubles in the housing and credit markets could be spilling into the general economy. The Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates...
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Data released by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Thursday morning shows that new-home sales bounced back in October-thanks to a generous adjustment to September's data to show a pace of just 716,000. The figure originally reported last month was much...
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Foreclosure activity (default notices, auction sale notices, and bank repossessions) increased 2 percent from the previous month and 94 percent from October 2006, according to a report by RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosure properties. A total of 224,451 foreclosure filings were...
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Toll Brothers has taken its hits this year like every other big builder. But the Horsham, Pa.-based company, which operates in 50 markets and 22 states, has been able to survive the housing downturn better than many of its competitors because it targets a segment of buyers that is growing...
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U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Raymond Ray has allowed KeyBank and Bank of America to take back their properties in what may be another sign that famed builder Levitt and Sons 78-year run is done.
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Total existing-home sales-including single-family, townhomes, condominiums, and co-ops-dropped 1.2 percent, and prices posted a record slump in October according to a report released Wednesday morning by the National Association of Realtors (NAR). One of the more telling statistics of October's...
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The "steep correction" that the housing industry is going through currently "is not unprecedented" and shouldn't obscure positive economic and demographic trends that will contribute to strong and consistent housing formation over the next two decades. That is the message Ara Hovnanian, president...
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"At Centex, we are used to taking advantages of these cycles ... . That's something we are used to doing," Timothy R. Eller told the audience at a presentation at the JPMorgan Homebuilding and Building Products Conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday evening.
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Standard Pacific Corp. will not file Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection according to CEO Stephen J. Scarborough. In fact, Scarborough called the recent mumblings about the builder's future as "speculation" on Tuesday at the JPMorgan Homebuilding and Building Products Conference in Las Vegas.
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Pulte Homes CEO Richard J. Dugas Jr. says he doesn't expect the housing downturn to end anytime soon-in fact, he doesn't expect the downturn to end until 2009. Regardless, Pulte will remain focused on goals the Michigan-based builder set as it entered the fourth quarter.
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Hallmark Communities is offering burned-out owners in greater San Diego three different ways they can rebuild their homes that were damaged or destroyed by wildfires in late October. The builder has reassembled the same six-person rebuild team that it used four years ago, the last time fires swept...
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Since he anticipates 2008 to be another difficult year, Beazer Homes CEO Ian McCarthy says the Atlanta-based builder is focused on managing issues that have surfaced over the past few months, such as a recent financial restatement and an internal investigation concerning compliance. The company...
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That's the latest word from D.R. Horton CEO Don Tomnitz, who believes that the wave of foreclosures that will hit the market in 2008 when a million-plus subprime mortgages readjust will make for a very tough year. "There's no question that 2008 will be worse than 2007 for us," said Tomnitz...
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Home prices fell 4.5 percent in the third quarter from the same period in 2006 according to the Standard & Poor's S&P/Case-Shiller home price index, which was released Tuesday morning. The slide is the sharpest annual decline since Standard & Poor's began the nationwide housing index in 1987. The...
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Although he wouldn't commit to a specific timeframe, The Ryland Group CEO Chad Dreier said lending on new homes will return to a more rational mix of products. "Some day we will get to a more normalized market," said Dreier, speaking to financial analysts this morning at the JPMorgan Homebuilding...
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As of late Monday home builders were still assessing the damage from the weekend fires in Malibu, Calif., that destroyed 53 homes and damaged another 34. The state Office of Emergency Services (OES) said the Malibu fire, which was caused by an undetermined human intervention, was 90 percent...
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Nov. 24, 2007: Freddie Mac Posts a $2 Billion Loss but reportedly plans to raise $5 Billion in preferred stock sale; housing permits continue to fall; and builder sentiment stays at record low. BUILDER Online catches you up with the news you might have missed.
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According to a report released this week by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the median single-family house price in the United States fell to $220,800, which is down two percent from a year ago, despite prices increasing in 93 out of 150 metropolitan areas from a year earlier.
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Recognizing that many local builders believe that negative housing stories in the press kept consumer confidence low during the downturn, the Southern Nevada HBA hired consultants Applied Analysis to forecast the region's housing trends through 2012. The sound bite from the study: By the close of...
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The mortgage mess just got murkier. Government-sponsored lender Freddie Mac is reporting a net loss of $2 billion for the third quarter, and an $8.1 billion, or 25 percent drop, in the fair value of its assets. The announcement may dash the hopes of those in Congress and at the Treasury Department...
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Housing permits reached a new 14-year low in October as housing starts, enhanced by a surge in multi-family unit construction, made a modest jump according to a joint report from the Commerce Department and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on Tuesday morning. Total permits...
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Builder confidence held at record lows in November due to "continuing mortgage market problems and a substantial inventory overhang," according to the latest National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI), released today. The overall HMI was 19, which was the same as...
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Hollywood, Fla.-based Technical Olympic USA was informed late Friday by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) that its common stock and debt securities would be suspended effective Monday, November 19, because the home builder's shares fell below the $1 average closing price over a consecutive...
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ULI Author Says Housing Will Recover, But Tighter Controls Are Needed.
What do low-wage Chinese and Indian workers have to do with the favorable interest rates that fueled the housing boom in the United States? In his new book, Niagara of Capital, published by the Urban Land Institute, author Anthony Downs says low-cost labor in Asia kept inflation down worldwide in...
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ULI Author Says Housing Will Recover, But Tighter Controls Are Needed.
What do low-wage Chinese and Indian workers have to do with the favorable interest rates that fueled the housing boom in the United States? In his new book, Niagara of Capital, published by the Urban Land Institute, author Anthony Downs says low-cost labor in Asia kept inflation down worldwide in...
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In his new book, Niagara of Capital, published by the Urban Land Institute, author Anthony Downs says low-cost labor in Asia kept inflation down worldwide in the 1990s. So when the stock market crashed in 2000, the low rate of inflation allowed the world's central banks to stave off recession by...
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Nov. 17, 2007: Two builders file for Chapter 11 protection, while another mulls its options; Taylor Morrison's new top exec gears up for a new era; and existing homes sales were up (slightly) in September. BUILDER Online catches you up with the news you might have missed.
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Levitt and Sons' Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing has left a number of other companies in financial limbo. In the state of Florida alone, at least a dozen companies have filed liens against the builder. Cloud 9, an Orlando-based plumbing firm, is owed $26,267 from the historic builder.
When Sheryl Palmer accepted the job of chief executive officer of the home building company formed by last July's merger of Taylor Woodrow and Morrison Homes, she was walking into a situation other people probably would have avoided. Market conditions were terrible; she was becoming the newly...
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As troubles continue to mount for Hollywood, Fla.-based Technical Olympic USA (TOUSA), including a third-quarter net loss of $619.7 million, the home builder says it is considering Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The comments came in the company's third quarter report. In addition, the builder...
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The National Association of Realtors (NAR) said Tuesday that the Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI), a forward-looking indicator based on contracts signed in September, made an unexpected jump of 0.2 percent to a reading of 85.7 from an index of 85.5 in August. Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, also...
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The Democratic leadership of New Jersey's State Assembly made public yesterday an ambitious plan designed to stimulate more affordable housing throughout the Garden State, where this issue has been a hot potato for three decades.
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Stockton, Calif., Detroit, and Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif., had the highest foreclosure rates among the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas during the third quarter according to a report released Wednesday morning by RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosure properties. Greenville...
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Green builders everywhere rejoice-the list of green building products has just grown longer thanks to the release of BuildingGreen's 2007 Top-10 Green Building Products. Brattleboro, Vt.-based BuildingGreen, publisher of the GreenSpec Directory and Environmental Building News, announced the list at...