Hints and tips:
...Pulte, DR Horton and other big builders have all said on recent earnings calls that they are looking to boost their sales to first-time buyers....
...“We have seen demand for new homes start to dry up.”...
...New homes shot up from 10 per cent of for-sale housing inventory to a third, and Pulte had a great year....
...Home prices have begun to recover after slipping last year....
...Why has Pulte, in particular, done so well?...
...That left new homes as almost the only game in town for anyone who really needs to buy a home. Pulte has been one of the best- performing stocks in the S&P 500....
...Pulte is back near its all-time peaks, and with demand still high and input costs normalising, its margins are as wide as they have ever been....
...Valuations of the likes of Toll Brothers, Pulte and Lennar are a little high, but still within their historical range of 1-2 times book value. Why has the group come off its highs?...
...The four trade on price to forward earnings ratios that range from 10 times (Pulte) to 17 times (NVR), a bit above historical averages....
...PulteGroup cheered investors with expectations to deliver 5,400 to 5,700 homes in the second quarter....
...The Atlanta-based company said net new orders fell 11 per cent from a year ago to 4,267 homes, valued at $1.8bn....
...DR Horton, Lennar and Pulte, three of the largest home builders in the US, all noted high labour-cost inflation in their most recent calls with analysts....
...It would deny the tax break to buyers of new homes worth more than $500,000....
...All four stocks have posted large gains in 2017 with Pulte surging 35 per cent to lead the way and Tri Pointe lagging with a 15.6 per cent rise....
...All four stocks have posted large gains in 2017, ranging from a 34 per cent rise at Pulte and a 16.7 per cent increase at Tri Pointe....
...The National Association of Home Builders’s gauge rose to 65 in September, from 59 the month prior....
...Pulte merged with a rival Centex in 2009, which helped diversify it from a focus on housing development for older Americans and towards first-time buyers....
...Mr Pulte has retained lawyers from shareholder-activism practice Olshon Frome Wolosky....
...But in Monday’s letter to the Board, Mr Pulte stepped up demands for his immediate resignation....
...Mr Pulte is the company’s largest shareholder, with an 8 per cent stake....
...Revenues jumped 21.2 per cent to $2bn as home deliveries and prices both rose. Wall Street analysts expected profits of 52 cents a share on sales of $1.9bn....
...The Atlanta-based company said Mr Dugas’s decision was driven in part by pressure from founder Bill Pulte and his grandson Jim Grosfeld, who was appointed to the company’s board in December....
...Housing starts — a measure of the amount of work started on homes — for single-family homes and sales of newly built homes are estimated to grow 10 per cent, while home prices are expected to rise between...
...KB Home delivered 2,580 homes last quarter, up 16 per cent from a year ago, but chief executive Jeff Mezger said inclement weather and labour shortages in some markets had “tempered” deliveries and “ultimately...
...A measure of sales of newly constructed single-family homes from the commerce department rose 24.8 per cent in July from the year before, but the pace dipped to 2 per cent in September....
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