Fannie Mae has a new plan to fix the broken housing industry. The move aims to replace a more restricted policy on down payments adopted last December. This time, instead of having higher down payment requirements for despondent markets, the down payment requirements will be a national standard, no matter how bad off the buyer’s market may be. The goal, according to the company, is to implement successful home-owning, not just home buying. The policy states the new requirement for a down payment is 3 percent or 5 percent and that the new percentages will apply on loans made to purchase single-family residences. The new policy took effect June 1.
Lisa Buenzli Peterson is ProBuild Holdings’ new vice president of marketing. Peterson will oversee the firm’s marketing and communication activities. Before being appointed to her new position, Peterson was director of global marketing and product portfolio management for Johns Manville, a Denver-based manufacturer of insulation and commercial and industrial roofing systems. ProBuild recently acquired Jasper Lumber Co. and HD Supply’s Lumber and Building material, reported on in a past issue.
Centex Homes promoted Rainer Richter to director of land acquisition and strategy in the Central Florida region. Richter’s responsibilities include land acquisition and monitoring market conditions and trends. In other announcements, Shelli Bushway has been promoted to land acquisition manager in the Central Florida region. Bushway has been with Centex for more than three years.
Richard Binning is the new director of CAD Technology at Wakefleld Beasley & Associates. Binning has knowledge and experience in Building Information Modeling and participates in organizations such as buildingSMART and AUGI. He was formerly manager of AE Technology Application at The Haskell Co. in Jacksonville, Fla.
Pulte Homes isn’t putting up with a company it claims uses high-pressure sales tactics on senior citizens during inspections for construction defects. According to the lawsuit, Pulte claims M.C. Mojave Construction misled the homeowners about Pulte’s reputation, which lead to more than 350 unnecessary defect claims on homes. Pulte says the homes are backed with a 10-year manufacturing warranty. Watch the news clip from KVBC-TV Las Vegas for more details.
Epcon Communities is selling franchises to builders looking for a way to move land fast when the market finally turns.
When condo franchiser Epcon Communities recently unveiled eight new franchisees in six states, it stirred our interest. Who would buy a franchise to build affordable, move-down condos for empty-nesters in today’s depressed housing market?
Epcon is certainly no exception to the housing crash. The Ohio-based firm is No. 74 in Professional Builder’s 2008 Giant 400 rankings — on 1,734 units closed in 2007 — for $312.1 million in revenue. That’s a big drop from No. 63 a year ago. What we found is that Epcon is selling franchises today to builders with land on their books, not as an immediate solution to the problem, but rather to position their companies to move that land fast when the market turns in 2009 or 2010.
“We’re all working twice as hard for half as much,” Epcon principal Phil Fankhauser admits, “but demand for our product has not gone away. It’s just hiding. Boomers are still moving into the move-down niche, they just aren’t sure about selling their big, two-story homes in the suburbs at today’s prices. The business we’re not doing today is not lost business. It’s just delayed.”
Fankhauser and partner Ed Bacome are using the lull to position Epcon to grow fast when the market turns. More than a year ago, they began developing a new product line aimed at young professionals and single-again women. “There are now more single women buying homes than married ones,” Fankhauser says. A model home park with seven new designs — including three fully-detached condo homes — will open in Central Ohio later this summer.
And last December, the partners hired veteran McDonald’s executive Bob Franke (who led Mickey D’s expansion into Europe and South America) as their new vice president of franchising. Franke confirms that Epcon is now fielding inquiries from land developers and builders all across the country who are trying to find ways to move land. “We’ll find a franchise to go into a new market, or we’ll sell the land owners a franchise so they can do it themselves.”
New franchisee John Dunlap of Cascade Homes in Bozeman, Mont., is one of those. “My motivation was the active adult demographic,” he says. “I needed to find the right product to serve that niche, and I did a lot of research. We weighed the cost of designing our own product — and developing the business systems and processes to support it — against buying a franchise.
“Epcon came out on top because they have a proven product and brand,” Dunlap says. “This franchise should allow us to move multiple locations in a hurry when the market picks up.”
Dunlap has a 50-acre site for an active-adult campus in a planned community he’s been building for five years. –Bill Lurz
Dow Corning is taking an extra step in alternative energy; the company opened a new solar panel application center for research and creating new, innovative alternative products. Check out the news clip from WNEM-TV of Flint, Mich.
Watch an interview from Bloomberg TV with U.S. Treasury Undersecretary Robert Steel in which Steel discusses the state of the economy, the credit crunch, foreclosures and the situation of the housing market.
Digg This
