PulteGroup, the Michigan home-building company that is moving its headquarters to Atlanta next spring, plans to spend more money to buy land for new homes, even as demand for new houses slowed this fall.
“We believe the slowdown will ultimately prove to be short lived within a sustained, multiyear housing recovery,” PulteGroup chairman, president and CEO said in a statement in announcing a $1.6 billion investment allowance for land in 2014. That’s $200 million more than what the company expects to spend this year, and nearly $700 million higher than 2012.
Reduced demand for new homes, Dugas said, was “due to higher home prices, a rapid rise in mortgage rates, and political and economic uncertainty.” New orders of homes for the third quarter were down 17 percent, to 3,781 homes.
But revenues were up. The average sales price of Pulte’s homes was $310,000, in part because the company raised prices and in part because more buyers are looking for pricier active adult homes, or are move-up buyers with more to spend.
Pulte made $2.3 billion in the quarter, most of it the result of a deferred tax benefit. Before taxes, it made $174.7 million, a 65 percent increase from the $105.9 million it made before taxes in the third quarter of last year.
The company closed 823 homes in the Southeast in the third quarter, up 6.1 percent from 776 for the same period last year. It added 714 new orders in the region in the quarter, down 9.3 percent from 787 houses a year ago.
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