Deltona adds coach homes
Homes by Deltona has started new construction on luxury coach homes at Laterra Links in King and Bear at World Golf Village. After purchasing the community in late 2009, the company has begun construction on 20 new coach homes, which will be housed in five new buildings. All of the new homes will offer views of The King and Bear golf course or surrounding lakes and home prices will start from the low-$400,000s.
Construction on the first luxury coach homes is expected to be complete in July and all homes are expected to be complete by year’s end.
The homes will range from 2,160 to 2,783 square feet.
Economic forum schedule
The Florida Independent Concrete and Associated Products and the Florida Home Builders Association will host a Construction Industry Economic Forum on April 27 in Orlando.
The forum will bring top national economists together to discuss the future of construction in Florida and speakers include David Crowe, Chief Economist for the National Association of Home Builders; Matt Lesser, Chief Financial Analyst, American Express New York; and an economist from the Florida banking industry.
The event will be from 5:30 - 8 pm at the Holiday Inn, Universal Orlando. Cost is $45 per person, which includes dinner.
Lennar shows models
Lennar Homes opened their Lexington Park model, the Cordova, with a Realtor event last month that included tours of all the company’s models.
Lexington Park is a new community in northeast Jacksonville and Lennar has feature six floorplans ranging from 1,488 to over 2,400 square feet. The Cordova has 2,050 square feet.
NAR: be careful with FHA
The National Association of Realtors has urged Congress and the Obama administration to move cautiously before making changes to the Federal Housing Administration program that has served the needs of millions of American families for more than 75 years without needing a federal appropriation.
FHA remains financially strong because it has taken steps to ensure solid underwriting standards and responsible lending practices, said Charles McMillan, NAR immediate past president, in testimony before the House Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity last month.
NAR strongly supports H.R. 2483, the “Increasing Homeownership Opportunities Act.” Current FHA loan limits are as high as $729,750 in high-cost areas, and are set to expire at the end of the year and revert to lower amounts, greatly hindering the housing recovery process. A decrease of current limits would adversely affect 612 counties in 40 states and the District of Columbia.
Beazer building in Verano
Beazer Homes has 18 new town homes under construction at Verano at Bartram Park in the Mandarin area that will open in time for the June 30 closing deadline on the $8,000 federal tax credit incentive for qualified new home buyers.
The homes will be priced from $129,990 to $149,990.
Beazer also will open the first new model home in the Bartram Park community in more than five years soon.
NAHB against new limits
Proposals by federal banking regulators to tighten restrictions on commercial real estate lending could further exacerbate a severe acquisition, development and construction credit crisis that is choking off new home building activity and threatening the fragile housing recovery now under way, according to the National Association of Home Builders.
“We have received scores of reports from builders across the nation who have been unable to obtain AD&C financing for viable projects or have experienced adverse treatment regarding an outstanding loan,” said NAHB Chairman Bob Jones, a home builder from Bloomfield Hills, Mich. “At a time when we are struggling to restore the flow of credit for housing production, any regulatory response to CRE lending must be done in a responsible manner that takes into account the differences between commercial real estate and residential construction loans.”
Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan said recently that banking agencies plan to issue new tougher standards to rein in CRE lending and are considering hard limits on the amount of these holdings on bank ledgers as well as more stringent underwriting standards and increased capital requirements for CRE loans.