Lennar Homes Underscores Its Commitment to the Northeast Housing Market

Fred Rothman, a 20-plus-year veteran of New York Metropolitan real estate development, was lured out of a temporary Florida reprieve last year to become Lennar’s Northeast regional president. His mission was to navigate the company through the current market while simultaneously plotting a course for the future that would ensure Lennar’s position as one of the leading and most admired home builders in the region for years to come. “There are significant opportunities for growth here,” he said, “much the same as we experienced in 1990. You build for the future in a market like today. That’s exactly what we’re doing.” While Lennar will consider all property types, the preference will be on infill, redevelopment sites, rezoned former industrial properties and transit villages, and premier active adult communities. “We’re emphasizing selling off existing inventory, using incentives when necessary to seal the deal,” he said, “and there are still some very limited opportunities for buyers to take advantage of these incentives on existing homes. Once these homes are sold, we will forego spec homes and will instead build specifically for our home buyers. At that point, incentives will be a thing of the past.” (www.prweb.com)
PR Web Newswire (12/17/07)

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Local Housing Market Ripe for Loonie

With the financial exchange rate turning in the Canadians’ favor and hitting a three-decade high, countless Canadians looking for retirement homes where they can escape frigid weather are investing in desert homes in the Palm Springs, Calif. market. Most buyers are paying cash — not wanting to risk the exchange rate souring while paying off a loan on their second or third home. No one knows exactly how many Canadians have purchased homes this season. But other warm climate, resort communities across the country — from Arizona to Florida — are seeing a similar trend in their winter housing sales. At Coldwell Banker’s six locations in Coachella Valley, Calif., each office is averaging about six sales a month to Canadian buyers. That’s double what they were doing two years ago, according to regional vice president Ron Gerlich. Canadians who have purchased here say it’s a perfect time, thanks to the favorable exchange rate, the nearly 10,000 homes for sale in the area and soft market prices that are almost 8% lower than last year. (www.mydesert.com)
The Desert Sun (12/17/07); Erica Solvig

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Hot Housing Land Sales Offset a Housing Glut in Phoenix

What’s happening in Phoenix has begun to play out across the U.S. in recent weeks. Public home builders and land developers, who dominated the market during the boom, are bloated with land and need to sell, partly to record losses to recoup taxes. Meanwhile, more nimble private builders and opportunistic investors are raising money and starting to snap up the pieces, buying parcels for as much as 60% discounts. “It’s a great time to be looking for land in Phoenix,” says John Fioramonti, senior managing director at Myers Builder Advisor, a real-estate consulting firm in Scottsdale, Ariz. “The national builders are just in a panic to get rid of excess inventory.” The land deals in Phoenix and elsewhere are a vivid reminder that even when housing markets are scraping bottom, investors are willing to buy land if the price falls low enough. Many of these investors will hold the property for several years confident that the market will eventually recover. Others, like John Laing Homes, think they can still profitably develop homes in the next few months if the land they buy is in the right location. Still others are looking to take land off a builder’s books and then sell lots piecemeal back to that same builder for a hefty profit or fee. Even the large public builders will at some point need to replenish their supplies. (www.realestatejournal.com)
RealEstateJournal.com (12/10/07); Michael Corkery, Wall Street Journal Online

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Economist Sees Rebound From Nevada’s Mortgage Crisis

Nevada’s economy should be so strong by 2009 that a housing shortage may be the big concern rather than the current mortgage crisis and heavy surplus of homes for sale, Jeremy Aguero of Las Vegas-based Applied Analysis told a legislative panel studying the state’s mortgage problems. With some $36 billion in mega-resort construction occurring in Las Vegas in the next few years, Aguero said the people holding new jobs created by the building activity will buy up homes now available on the market and probably need more. “You won’t have enough housing stock for all the jobs in the near-term pipeline,” he said. “How many markets can you point to with a $36 billion investment in core industry alone that have long-term housing problems? Very, very few.” (www.nevadaappeal.com)
Nevada Appeal (12/3/07); Brendan Riley, Associated Press

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Cumberland One of Few Cities Where Housing Prices Are Rising

Cumberland, Md. is one of the top 10 cities in the nation where housing prices are rising, according to Forbes magazine. That list includes Salt Lake City; Binghamton, N.Y.; Salem, Ore.; Farmington, N.M.; Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, Pa.-N.J.; Reading, Pa.; Glens Falls, N.Y.; and Spokane, Wash. Cumberland is at the bottom of the list with a 9.3% increase in home prices, while the others range from 10.4% to 21.9%. With an average home price of $109,300, Cumberland is in the midst of a renaissance in its downtown area and Alliant Tech at Rocket Center is fueling growth with high-paying jobs for employees who also want good housing. Many of the local homes are older and were allowed to deteriorate after the large manufacturers moved out of the area in the latter part of the 20th century. (www.times-news.com)
Cumberland Times-News (12/17/09); Mona Ridder

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A Sweet ‘Housing Boom’: Gingerbread Town Models Annapolis

James Barrett, the executive chef at The Westin Annapolis Hotel in Maryland, and his two sous chefs spent more than 300 hours creating an entirely edible gingerbread village in hopes of starting a tradition among small business owners in the vicinity. The village is on display in the hotel lobby through Jan. 6. “I hope some of the shop owners down here will come and see my gingerbread village this year and be inspired to create a gingerbread scene in their storefront windows next year,” said Barrett. “I hope to start a gingerbread housing boom.” Made with about 800 pounds of gingerbread, 200 pounds of frosting, a case of Necco Wafers, 40 pounds of hard Christmas candies, about 20 pounds of pretzels, Hershey’s Kisses, candy canes and boxes of cereal, the 20-foot long, 10-foot wide village comprises scale representations of the hotel, row houses, St. Anne’s Episcopal Church and various Annapolis houses. Constructed with frosted wheat and crisped rice cereals and chocolate bars, the roofs were tedious. “We had to put the shingles, which were done with cereal, on the buildings one piece at a time,” said sous chef Troy Jones. The Cinnamon Toast Crunch was bad enough, he said. But the Captain Crunch was even worse. “Captain Crunch cereal is so small, it took forever to do it,” he said. “I got quicker at building the roofs with the larger items like the graham cracker squares.” Several of the single-family dwellings in the village are replicas of homes on East and Maryland streets. The homes include peppermint stick fences, and Christmas trees made using Peppermint Patties at the base, and upside-down sugar cones coated with green frosting as the trees. (www.baltimoresun.com)
Baltimore Sun (12/14/07); Cassandra A. Fortin

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