Life marches on and builders build for it
Real Estate Editor rmize@oklahoman.com
With the third quarter of this crazy year in the books, here are some cold homebuilding stats.
Not cold as in bad, just cold, soothing if you will, normal and everyday even, compared with the sheer madness that’s dominated so much of the news lately.
Everybody just take a deep breath, and breathe.
According to The Builder Report by Dharma Inc in Norman, through September:
•North Oklahoma City started nearly twice as many new homes, 1,436, as south Oklahoma City, with 771.
•Edmond started a lot more new houses, 478, than Norman, with 297. For Edmond, that’s a whopping increase of 57.8 percent. For Norman, it was a decrease of 8.6 percent.
Other localities of note:
•Newcastle started 107, up from 70 the first nine months of last year.
•Noble started 30, compared with zero.
•Yukon started 43, more than double the 20 starts through September last year.
The heartbeat of homebuilding is still at the entry level. According to The Builder Report, through the third quarter, builders started:
•282 houses at $100,000 or lower — down 18.5 percent.
•969 houses at $100,000 to $150,000 — up 12 percent.
•609 houses at $150,000 to $200,000 — up 14.5 percent.
Move-ups were next:
•542 at $200,000 to $250,000 — down 2.3 percent.
•546 at $250,000 to $300,000 — up 26.4 percent.
The rest of the price ranges:
•277 at $300,000 to $350,000 — up 51.4 percent. This increase seems significant. My own feel for the market, totally unscientific but based on nearly 18 years of watching it regularly, is $300,000 is the price point at which people here — at least those from here — probably feel like they’ve “made it” (another totally unscientific, by-feel benchmark).
•125 at $350,000 to $400,000 — up 9.6 percent.
•75 at $400,000 to $450,000 — down 9.6 percent.
•57 at $450,000 to $500,000 — up 72.7 percent. This one seems significant, too. This seems like the “working executive”/top-of-career level. These people disappeared from the market for quite awhile when crude oil prices crashed nearly three years ago.
•158 at $500,000 and up — up 1.9 percent. I don’t know any of these people.
Three subdivisions with the most construction so far this year, according to The Builder Report:
•The Grove, with 119 starts — south side of NW 192 between Portland and May, wheat pasture when I moved here in 1999.
•Lone Oak East, with 59 starts — north side of NW 150 between MacArthur and Portland, cow pasture.
•Valencia, with 57 starts — south side of NW 192 between May and Pennsylvania, native grass and maybe some wheat, seems like.
•The Grove, Lone Oak East, and Valencia all have Edmond addresses and are in the Edmond or Deer Creek public school districts. Eradicated cows, pasture and wheat fields noted just because I notice such things.
Finally, who are the buildingest builders so far this year, according to The Builder Report’s tracking? The top three:
•Home Creations, based in Moore, with 329 starts through the third quarter.
•Taber Built Homes LLC, based in Oklahoma City, coming on strong with 298 starts.
•Rausch Coleman Homes OKC, based in Oklahoma City, also coming on, with 257 starts.
As crazy as the times might seem, life is going on, and homebuilders keep building places in which to live it.