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    Get Niche Quick

    When the market cools, specialization can be a very good thing.

     
  • 10 Things You Need to Know About Modular Homes

    Surely you've heard the industry's sales pitch by now: lower costs, speedy construction, excellent craftsmanship, and quality building products in a controlled setting. Builders who use modular systems say you can believe the hype. But before you run out to your local supplier or modular home manufa...

     
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    Survival Instinct

    Chris Coleman doesn't expect his housing market to get well anytime soon. As president of Northfield, Ill.–based The Dearborn-Buckingham Group, he assumes, only half facetiously, that his company “will not sell a single home” in 2008. But don't count Coleman among the industry's doomsayers, because ...

     
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    Sound Decisions

    Before Colin Brandt began work on designing a house overlooking Washington state's Puget Sound for Barbara and Peter Bradfield, he spent an afternoon on the Bradfields' boat. Brandt, his wife, and another architect from his Seattle-based firm, The Brandt Design Group, joined the Bradfields on their ...

     
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    Builder 100

    Alan B. Levan of Levitt Corp is profiled as part of the 2006 Builder 100.

     
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    Focus On Flexibility

    Much like race-horses wearing blinders, America's Best Builders—Gaffney Homes, The Green Co., Touchstone Homes, and Ideal Homes—have kept their focus on what's ahead despite a year of suffering sales. Last year's closings may reflect consumer caution, but the leaders of these four leading-edge build...

     
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    Flex Time

    The term custom home conjures up a certain image in the minds of many consumers—a large home, for starters. They may envision a palatial exterior, soaring interior spaces, exquisite finishes, every amenity, fabulous kitchens and baths, to-die-for outdoor entertainment areas. But mostly they think .....

     
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    Fast Track 2006

    Experience has never been more valued than right now, as builders deal with the double whammy of robust competition and weakening sales. In our eighth annual Fast Track list, we examine the secrets of fast-growing builders'success—and what they're doing to keep the pace.

     
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    A Happy Ending

    ANY NUMBER OF CLICHÉD SUPERLATIVES COULD be used to describe the Washington development team of Jim Gibson and Sam Dunn: heroes, white knights, last-minute saviors, men among men. The terms would all be appropriate for a duo who recently wrapped up a whopper of a NIMBY saga.

     
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    Carved In Stone

    BOB SHUSTER, PRESIDENT OF RWS CUSTOM Homes, says he knows that if he needs to get to a jobsite in Franklin Farms in a hurry, he'd better take the truck. “People wave at me when I drive through the community,” he says. “It takes too long to walk down the street because everyone wants to stop and talk...

     
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    Standing Firm

    When it closed 250 homes two years ago, Altmann-Ott Homes ranked as Reno, Nev.'s fifth-largest builder. But this western market of 200,000 people, which issues around 5,000 permits per year, has since become a magnet attracting national builders, several of which “are finding ways to get 500 homes o...

     
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    Halfway House

    Structure Development Group in Woodland Hills, Calif. is carving a new market niche with its hybrid business model.

     
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    Staking a Claim

    RANI HONG WAS A HOMELESS 8-year-old girl in India when an American family named Clark adopted her in 1979. One year later, Rani's future husband, Trong Hong, arrived in the United States from Vietnam when he was 9 years old under virtually the same circumstances.

     
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    Space Wars

    HOME BUILDERS WORKING ON TEARDOWNS IN historic Myers Park in Charlotte, N.C., had a tough fight on their hands earlier this year when a neighborhood group brought up an arcane open-space rule that threatened to derail the lucrative teardown business for local custom home builders.

     
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    Leaders Of The Pack

    Given his success then, years ago, he was running Portland's top home building company, RMP Properties, closing almost 500 homes and grossing about $30 million annually. Then D.R. Horton came calling with the money Pollock thought he needed to grow the company into the regional powerhouse he'd dream...

     
  • Mod To The Max

    MENTION THE TERM "MODULAR housing" to the average person and one of two things will happen: If you're lucky, you'll get a quizzical look of ignorance; a more common reaction, however, may be one of condescension. In the eyes of the public, the reputation that precedes modular housing is not a good o...

     
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    James Previti

    Profile of James Previti, owner/CEO of Frontier Homes.

     
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    Jeremy Liardon

    The nationwide median selling price for new homes topped $200,000 for the first time in 2004. That price is where “affordable” housing begins in many markets. But in Houston, builders selling homes above $133,000 get hit with impact fees, which explains why 48 percent of the units Royce Homes closed...

     
  • A Place in the Sun

    The town-building principles that Verrado followed are creating district cores and centers of activity; neighborhoods organized around town features; connectivity through broader "icon" streets with double rows of trees; diversity of product type; and plenty of parks.

     
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    'Extreme' Construction

    Viewers of ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" don't see the total commitment of hundreds of home building professionals who put in tens of thousands of hours, off-camera and without a make-up artist, to make a dream come true for a deserving family.