Beazer Homes USA, the Atlanta home-building company, said it saw signs of improvement as it lost $20.4 million in its first quarter. Beazer made $739,000 in the first quarter last year.
New home orders rose 28.7 percent, to 932 homes, and the company’s cancellation rate was lower, executives said. Both the value and number of homes in Beazer’s backlog was up substantially over the first quarter of last year.
The company expects orders in the second and third quarters to be below last year’s numbers. Total home closings were up 19.7 percent over the same quarter last year.
Beazer spent $90 on land and land development, but its number of communities fell in December. Beazer expects the number of communities to grow in 2014; 86 percent of its communities are currently performing well.
Beazer is one of the nation’s largest single-family home builders.
