First quarter new home sales skyrocket for many national home builders!

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Early 2015 quarterly reports reflect heavy increase in real estate activity, especially new homes. D.R. Horton is a nationally recognized home builder and has developments throughout the United States. They have been the largest home builder in the U.S. 13 years in a row. On Wednesday, D.R. Horton reported a dramatic increase in new home sales highlighted by “sales orders increased 40% in value to $2.1 billion” from the first quarter of 2014 to the first quarter of 2015.

These numbers are significant considering that first quarter home sales are usually lack luster. What does this tell us? With the rising consumer confidence reports, buyers are investing in real estate and new homes sales are spiking. D.R. Horton has increased their land acquisitions and developed more communities recently to keep up with demand. Donald Horton, Chairman of the Board said ”our weekly sales pace has accelerated in January 2015, and we are well-positioned to capture demand in the spring selling season with our … robust community count, finished lot supply and inventory of homes available for sale.”

SI Real Estate posted a different Wall Street Journal article highlighting the sales increase of top national home builders last week. Taylor Morrison reported on Wednesday a 30% increase in its January sales from a year ago. Echoing that trend: M/I Homes, Beazer, Pulte and Ryland commented that their January 2015 sales exceeded their January 2014 sales. Jeffrey Mezger, president and CEO of KB Home predicts a strong second half of the year in 2015. “We believe the momentum of these favorable trends, in combination with our solid backlog, support a positive revenue outlook for the remainder of the year, particularly in the third and fourth quarters.” Every nationally recognized new home brand is seeing an increase in business. Real estate from the ground up has the ability to spur an economic turnaround and 2015 could be exactly what the doctor ordered.

Economic experts are expecting interest rates to be raised by the Fed after their June meetings. Right now we basically have a perfect storm for buyers: interest rates are still historically low, qualifying for FHA loans is easier due to PMI reduction, and consumers have more disposable income partly due to the drastic decrease in crude oil prices. SI Real Estate’s exposure to the market in Tampa Bay is showing us the same positive trends the builders are seeing nationally. We are getting more buyer traffic, and seeing demand for homes increase every week. 2015 is poised to be an excellent year for the real estate market!

Sources-
http://scvnews.com/2015/01/28/homebuilder-d-r-horton-posts-16-higher-profit/
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/kb-home-reports-25-increase-in-preliminary-quarter-to-date-net-orders-with-net-order-value-of-519-million-up-26-2015-02-11

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/02/04/consumer-confidence-lifting-home-sales/

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