NEW MARK FOR LAYOFFS Newmark Homes, a local brand of failed Florida homebuilder TOUSA, will be laying off 156 Houston employees beginning in May, according to a filing with the Texas Workforce Commission. Another 63 employees in Austin will lose their jobs. The company, which filed for bankruptcy back in January 2008, had been trying to sell Newmark and its other local brand, Trophy Homes. “The company said in a recent statement that it would stop building new homes and focus on selling its remaining inventory of speculative homes and its land holdings.” [Houston Business Journal]