Almost-New Homes

latimes.com: Speculators, whose robust purchases made 2005 one of the best years for new-home sales, have reined in their buying and started selling amid signs of a housing slowdown. The influx of their almost-new homes is making it harder for builders to sell brand-new ones.
“This slowing of sales activity is particularly evident in markets which have experienced significant price increases and investor-driven demand in recent years, such as California and Florida,” Standard Pacific said.
Until recently, builders could sell new homes as fast as they could develop them, opening up an increasing number of new-home communities at increasingly higher prices. The result pleased Wall Street and fattened the companies’ bottom lines.
Now, supply is outpacing demand in many regions, giving potential buyers more choices, including recently built houses that in many cases have never been occupied. Even though builders have tried to limit investor purchases by prohibiting buyers from selling homes within a certain time, “clearly they slipped through,” said John Burns, an Irvine-based building industry consultant.
Orange County resident John Cullum is one such investor. He’s trying to sell a new home he bought last year.
Cullum recently listed a four-room house in the Riverside County community of Menifee that was completed in October by privately held builder Van Daele Homes. It has never been lived in and is listed at $460,000, a price that he believes is competitive with yet-to-be-built models nearby that are being peddled by other building companies.
Almost-New Homes Hurt Sales of Brand-New Ones [Los Angeles Times]