Biggest Builders to Gain Market Share as Demand Rises

The biggest U.S. homebuilders are poised to benefit from a fledgling rebound in demand for new houses this year, with competitors having gone out of business during the recession and sales likely to climb from record lows. D.R. Horton Inc., Lennar Corp. and Toll Brothers Inc. are among companies planning to boost their community counts by at least 10 percent this year after writing down property values, buying land at discounted prices and obtaining financing unavailable to smaller, closely held builders. “It’s a definite bull tenet for the big builders,” said Ivy Zelman, chief executive officer of Cleveland-based advisory firm Zelman & Associates, who rated all homebuilders “sell” in December 2006 and now has “buy” on five of the 13 she covers. “That’s one of the reasons we’re recommending investors be long a handful of homebuilding stocks.” The National Association of Home Builders expects new single-family home sales to rise to 405,000 this year, while Moody’s Analytics Inc. projects an increase to 540,000. The annual pace of sales averaged 319,640 for the 11 months through November, down 15 percent from a year earlier, according to Commerce Department data.

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