Homebuilders are cautiously resuming their land development operations as new-home sales inch upward, thinning out a glut of single-family lots that piled up during the housing bubble.
Builders say the spring sales season is off to the best start in at least three years. Sales are up 13 percent in the nine-county region, and some builders are posting much larger gains. Newly confident buyers seeking to capitalize on low mortgage rates have discovered there’s a scarce supply of well-maintained existing homes for sale and are turning in larger numbers to new homes.
“The feeling in the industry is positive. Everybody took a big hit, and they’re more conservative than before, but they feel progress,” said Steve Lains, president of the Builders Association of Greater Indianapolis. “Employment numbers are moving in the right direction, interest rates are low, and there are some signs of pent-up demand for first-time buyers and empty-nesters.”
The improvements in the new-home market so far are more about stabilization than recovery: The Builders Association expects the nine-county region to produce about 3,800 new homes this year, only a slight improvement from numbers posted in 2009, 2010 and 2011. For each year from 1999 to 2005, builders added more than 13,000 homes.
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