New Homes

Village Builders Waterbrook Opening Late Fall In Argyle TX

Village Builders has pushed back their opening for the Argyle community of Waterbook to late Fall 2019 according to a company representative I spoke with earlier today. One of model homes is currently under construction, but it will apparently be a couple of months before the community is ready to entertain contracts for new home construction. Waterbook won't see its first permanent residents until 2020. Parent company Lennar Homes has experienced some delays getting things off the ground after acquiring the community in the CalAtlantic acquisition. Prices in Waterbrook are still slated to range from [...]

Single-Family Housing Permits & Starts Still Stagnating

The Census Bureau reported permits and starts numbers for May which were less than impressive. While permits were up from revised April figures, they were still lower than levels seen last year. Single-family permits (one unit structures) were down 3.3 percent from the same time a year ago. The sluggish numbers for housing permits and starts in May is a bit surprising to some of the experts considering the recent plunge in mortgage interest rates. Unfortunately there is more to the demand for new homes than just ultra low interest rates. Housing starts in May [...]

Denton County New Home Sales Spring To Life In March

Denton County new home sales are enjoying a spring revival courtesy of lower mortgage interest rates. Preliminary March data for North Texas shows that home sales rebounded in March, with new home sales driving the action. Buyers were obviously lured off the fence in the DFW area when it came to buying new homes. It also helped that new home builders were keeping price points lower. The average price of new homes in Dallas-Fort Worth still shows to be softening. Pending sales data for March looks a bit weaker than closings, so it will be [...]

Summer Opening Possible For Village Builders Waterbrook In Argyle TX

Village Builders is on schedule for a late fall 2019 opening (updated) for the community of Waterbrook in Argyle Texas. Lennar Corporation acquired the Argyle community of Waterbrook via their recent acquisition of Cal Atlantic Homes. Terra Manna was developing Waterbrook for Cal Atlantic before it was re-branded with Lennar's upscale Village Builders product line. Waterbrook is a 105-acre planned community with approximately 275 residential home sites. 40' 50' and 70' lots will be available ranging in prices from the $300's to the mid $500's. Waterbrook is located at the southeast corner of Highway 377 [...]

Denton County TX New Home Sales Rebound With Lower Rates

New home sales in Denton County rebounded in February as lower rates helped to push some prospective buyers off the fence. New home prices in the Denton area are still a bit sluggish as the shift toward more affordable new home inventory continues so far in 2019. This can be seen in the lower average new home prices and stagnant price per square foot.  So far at least, new home buyers in the Denton area are willing to sacrifice some space in order to keep overall prices down. New home builders are trying to match [...]

Trendmaker Homes Comes To Dallas Via TRI Pointe Acquisition of Dunhill

California based TRI Pointe Group is expanding its Texas footprint by purchasing Dallas-based Dunhill Homes for a reported $60 million. Dunhill Homes operates in the Dallas-Fort Worth market under the Dunhill and Nathan Carlisle Homes brands. Effective January 1st, Dunhill will begin operating under the Trendmaker Homes brand. Trendmaker Homes was previously part of Weyerhaeuer before the Houston area builder was acquired by TRI Pointe several years ago. Trendmaker builds a number of affordable luxury homes in the Houston and Austin markets. With the absorption of Dunhill Homes, TRI Point will acquire Dunhill's assets, and [...]

Frisco TX Home Sales Collapse As DFW Market Turns

Home sales were down 13 percent in Frisco TX, the popular suburban Dallas community which is also home to the Dallas Cowboys. Pending sales during the month of October were even worse, falling 16 percent from the same time a year ago. The number of homes for sale in this   in this sports-minded community rose 6.2%. There are over a 1000 homes for sale in Frisco currently, but they aren't selling like they used to. Frisco's real estate problem is the same one plaguing the North Texas market in general. Prices are simply too high, [...]

LGI Homes Stock Nosedives As Q3 Sales Decline 7.4% With Higher Community Count

Woodlands based LGI Homes posted third quarter results that didn't impress the market. Home closings fell 7.4% in the latest quarter. More concerning is that LGI's sales decline occurred as the community count increased from 77 to 81. As I have detailed for much of the year, publicly-traded home builders are struggling to match the shift in consumer demand toward less expensive homes. As their order growth has stalled with higher mortgage rates, builder stock prices have suffered. LGI's problems are more complex. I suspect that LGI's problems go beyond just average prices. LGI already builds [...]

Yield Surge Hits Already Beaten Down Homebuilder Stocks

The yield surge experienced this week certainly took its toll on homebuilder stocks. As the yield on the benchmark U.S.  10 -Year Treasury eclipsed 3.2 percent this week, you could hear the air coming out of the publicly traded homebuilder sector. The Dow Jones U.S. Home Construction Index was down 27% as of yesterday's close. The year-to-date declines in the stocks of publicly traded homebuilders certainly don't echo the "remarkably positive" economic circumstances that Fed chair Jerome Powell was playing up this week. I can only assume he was referring to the Wall Street bonus [...]

New Home Builders Clipped By Weak Order Growth

New home builders had a relatively rough week with several major publicly-traded builders experiencing some nasty haircuts in their stock prices. With the exception of DR Horton, it wasn't a good week for home builder stocks. While Facebook and Twitter were seeing record drops in their share prices, new home builders were also experiencing a hangover from weak growth in new home orders. The Dow Jones Home Construction Index has trended lower for most of the year, down almost 18 percent year-to-date. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand why the index peaked just [...]

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