Beazer has built hundreds of homes around Charlotte, but now the Atlanta based builder may be closing all of its operations here.
Beazer was the target of a federal lawsuit claiming sales agents falsified documents to help buyers get homes. Homes that some buyers couldn't afford.
Many of those homes ended up in foreclosure.
WBTV's Melissa Hankins has been following the Mortgage Meltdownand brings us this report.
Press "PLAY" for the complete story.
You may also remember Beazer homes from the dozens of stories we did about its relationship with the Coffee Cup restaurant.
Beazer owned the land where the historic restaurant was located. On Clarkson Street, just outside of Center City.
After years of fighting to remove the Coffee Cup so Beazer could build, the restaurant finally moved on its own. Now, it looks like the big progress the Coffee Cup was fighting may be stopped completely.
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Thursday, January 31, 2008
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Mercedes Homes (Melbourne, Florida) Layoffs and Implosion Continues - Headquarters for Sale
Anyone want to but an office building? Mercedes Homes' brand new shiny headquarters is for sale. The remaining troops moved into the top two floors of a building they mistakenly built just a year ago and now don't fill half of.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Homebuilders Stocks Tumble further - KB, WCI, Centex, Pulte Report Losses
Homebuilder stocks tumbled Tuesday after KB Home reported a $773 million quarterly loss and new data showed pending home sales fell more than expected in November.
KB Home's fourth-quarter loss resulted from ongoing weak demand and plummeting margins, as land impairment charges and tax expenses came in higher than analysts projected.
KB Home shares were down 8.6% to $16.89 in midday trading, hitting a 52-week low Other builders tumbled on the reports as well, with Meritage Homesdropping 11.9% to $10.11 -- also a 52-week low -- and WCI Communities falling 8.8% to $3.34.
KB Home's quarterly loss amounted to $9.99 a share, compared with a loss of $49.6 million, or 64 cents a share, a year earlier. Analysts expected a loss of $1.08 a share.
The Los Angeles-based builder said revenue fell 31% to $2 billion, reflecting the ongoing difficulties of getting buyers to close on their new home purchases. KB Home also said 2008 will be "another tough year" for the homebuilding industry.
Also on Tuesday, the National Association of Realtors said its pending home sales index fell 2.6% in November from October -- worse than the 0.5% decline that economists expected, according to Reuters estimates. The index measures contracts of existing home sales.
"The disappointing data show that record levels of home inventories will take a while to burn off, which means that homebuilders may have to cut prices even further to sell homes.
We expect further modest declines in pending sales in the coming months as buyers continue to wait for home prices to bottom, although further price cuts should begin to lure some buyers off the sidelines," Bank of America analyst Daniel Oppenheim said in a research note.
KB Home's bottom line was slammed by $403 million of land impairment charges. The company also recorded a $373.7 million income tax expense, even though the company lost money on a generally accepted accounting principles basis.
This charge mostly relates to a reserve allowance against KB Home's deferred tax assets -- meaning the company must create an accounting entry to allow for the chance that it cannot carry unused tax deductions into the future.
"The inventory impairment charges we incurred during the housing downturn have produced substantial deferred tax assets," KB Home CEO Jeffrey Mezger said. "To the extent that we generate sufficient taxable income in the future to utilize the tax benefits of the related deferred tax assets, we expect to see a reduction in our effective tax rate as the valuation allowance is reversed."
The company's new orders in the quarter fell 32% to 2,574 units. The cancellation rate on previous orders measured 58% -- the same level as a year ago, but up from 50% in the third quarter.
KB Home's fourth-quarter loss resulted from ongoing weak demand and plummeting margins, as land impairment charges and tax expenses came in higher than analysts projected.
KB Home shares were down 8.6% to $16.89 in midday trading, hitting a 52-week low Other builders tumbled on the reports as well, with Meritage Homesdropping 11.9% to $10.11 -- also a 52-week low -- and WCI Communities falling 8.8% to $3.34.
KB Home's quarterly loss amounted to $9.99 a share, compared with a loss of $49.6 million, or 64 cents a share, a year earlier. Analysts expected a loss of $1.08 a share.
The Los Angeles-based builder said revenue fell 31% to $2 billion, reflecting the ongoing difficulties of getting buyers to close on their new home purchases. KB Home also said 2008 will be "another tough year" for the homebuilding industry.
Also on Tuesday, the National Association of Realtors said its pending home sales index fell 2.6% in November from October -- worse than the 0.5% decline that economists expected, according to Reuters estimates. The index measures contracts of existing home sales.
"The disappointing data show that record levels of home inventories will take a while to burn off, which means that homebuilders may have to cut prices even further to sell homes.
We expect further modest declines in pending sales in the coming months as buyers continue to wait for home prices to bottom, although further price cuts should begin to lure some buyers off the sidelines," Bank of America analyst Daniel Oppenheim said in a research note.
KB Home's bottom line was slammed by $403 million of land impairment charges. The company also recorded a $373.7 million income tax expense, even though the company lost money on a generally accepted accounting principles basis.
This charge mostly relates to a reserve allowance against KB Home's deferred tax assets -- meaning the company must create an accounting entry to allow for the chance that it cannot carry unused tax deductions into the future.
"The inventory impairment charges we incurred during the housing downturn have produced substantial deferred tax assets," KB Home CEO Jeffrey Mezger said. "To the extent that we generate sufficient taxable income in the future to utilize the tax benefits of the related deferred tax assets, we expect to see a reduction in our effective tax rate as the valuation allowance is reversed."
The company's new orders in the quarter fell 32% to 2,574 units. The cancellation rate on previous orders measured 58% -- the same level as a year ago, but up from 50% in the third quarter.
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