BARGAIN BASEMENT LIVING “. . . it’s really proper to think of the supply of housing types and neighborhood styles as a lagging indicator of the demand for housing types and neighborhood styles. If everyone decided tomorrow that Tuscan was out and Tudor was back in, homebuilders would continue to build Tuscan until there was enough evidence that the trend back towards Tudor was solid. Likewise, if 1/3rd of homebuyers decided tomorrow that they wanted to live in a mixed-use, gridded, somewhat urban neighborhood, developers would keep building “loops and lollipops†exclusively until the demand for mixed-use grids was proven.” [Keep Houston Houston]
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Lagging indicator indeed!! builders have a horrible track record of economic decision making.
they have been notoriously slow in adjusting to the marketplace. for example, just look at the royce homes CEO’s house mentioned here on swamplot. what a white elephant! builders make a building decision based on selling the marginal house they have on the marginal lot they have. this is why so many $3/4/5 million homes were built in Memorial that will go straight to the bank. small home builders saw $million home building as a get-rich-quick scheme with little thought into weather or not there would be actual BUYERS for the home. the thought process was “I could build one of these a year and make as much as I do on 10 smaller homes…”
also, the obscenly high margins on building products make modern homes nothing more than a delivery mechanism for high margin cabinetry, and tile floors, ect. this is why every home in town has matching windows, tile flors, “granite countertops” ad nauseum. i know one thing is certain. todays kitchens and bathrooms will be out of style in 10 years. just like those of 10 years ago. dont get me started.
It’s about time for some Tudor cottages.
Why are people on this website so uninformed and negatively opined towards the Homebuilding and Development Community. John Speer who is CEO and majority owner of Royce Homes, is indeed a smuck for greedily driving a once good company into the ground, but he is not a stupid smuck. People on this site should learn something about bankruptcy law and then they will understand a major reason why people like Mr. Speer, as well as powerful well to do people in all walks of life in Texas and other states which have liberal bankruptcy laws about “homesteaded” houses, build monuments worth millions of dollars even as a bargain in a down market.
Study up folks and realize that this house has nothing to do with Mr. Speer’s status as a “Big Bad Builder”.