Home building CEOs: cautious optimism for 2012

The CEOs of some of the nation’s biggest home-building companies said Thursday that they feel the housing market has stabilized, according to the Boston Globe, but they were careful not to be overly optimistic even with the spring home-selling season coming up. They may have been reminded that at this time last year, many housing experts thought that housing would begin recovering in 2011, only to see the worst year for new home sales on records going back a half-century.

Executives at PulteGroup Inc., MDC Holdings Inc., M/I Homes Inc. and Beazer Homes USA Inc. weighed in on the housing market after their companies reported financial results for October to December.

In that period, sales of new homes rose nationally as builders slashed prices to compete with sales of previously occupied homes, including many that had been foreclosed.

Beazer’s and M/I’s sales and new orders rose sharply in the quarter, while trends were mixed for PulteGroup and MDC Holdings.

Only PulteGroup ended the quarter with a smaller backlog of homes under contract than a year earlier, and its backlog fell less than 2 percent. Backlog is an indicator of potential home deliveries and revenue for home builders.

So the increases bode well for the spring. But executives were cagey about forecasts, saying that it is still too early to determine whether spring will be a boom or bust.

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