The development presence in Sacramento continues to contract.
Home Front: The walls are closing in on some area home building
By Jim Wasserman - jwasserman@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PST Friday, November 16, 2007
Reports continue to come in about Sacramento-area home builders cutting back on overhead, mothballing projects and, now, selling land.
One reason is that banks, with their growing numbers of repossessed homes, are becoming one of the builders' fiercest competitors for buyers in this market.
There's plenty to add to recent reports that Los Angeles-based Pardee Homes, Milwaukee-based Homes by Towne and Nouveau Homes of Rocklin temporarily closed projects in Natomas, Lincoln and Elk Grove rather than slash prices deeper.
Last week came another move in the continuing downsizing of the region's building industry. Arizona-based Meritage Homes closed a Sacramento division it opened in the late 1990s. The builder laid off about a dozen people and merged its operation into the Concord-based East Bay division, said Bay Area region president Dennis Welsch.
"What we did was we had support services in Sacramento, human resources, accounting, purchasing and back shop functions, that we pulled back to Concord," he said.
Sales and construction continue, said Welsch, at the firm's 10 projects in West Sacramento, Lincoln, Elk Grove, Roseville, Plumas Lakes in Yuba County, and Reno and Sparks, Nev.
Meritage, which in recent years has ranked among the capital region's top 15 builders, is among the first big publicly traded builders to close a Sacramento division. Denver-based Richmond American Homes also has closed a local headquarters.
San Jouquin River Restoration
