Kb Home

Westwood-based home builder KB Home said Robert L. Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television and chairman of RLJ Cos., was added as a director.

A barrage of key reports on housing showed price declines easing, sales of new homes improving from last year and foreclosures in California dropping to levels not seen since before the start of the credit crunch nearly five years ago. Taken together, the data paint a muddled but moderately positive picture of a market headed toward bottom, economists said Tuesday. “Fundamentals for the housing market are improving: affordability is very high given the drop in prices and extremely low interest rates, and the labor market is gradually healing,” economists for PNC Financial wrote in a note Tuesday morning.

KB Home said Friday its fiscal third quarter loss widened, as the homebuilder delivered fewer homes than a year ago when a federal homebuyer tax credit helped inflate deliveries and revenue. The Los Angeles company also said the tax credit, which expired in April 2010, contributed to a 40 percent climb in new home orders in this year's quarter. Homebuilders have been reporting annual increases in new home orders this summer, but much of that is attributed to a hangover effect from the expiration of the tax credit.

Add another catchphrase to the lexicon of home-price-obsessed economists: “deceleration.” It's either a signal of how closely watched the housing market is these days or just how desperate people are for good news. But economists and other observers are suddenly obsessed with housing's slowing decline. The latest example came Wednesday when Santa Ana data firm CoreLogic released its home price index that, including distressed sales, showed U.S. prices in February dropped 0.8% from January and down 2.0% from February 2011.

KB Home, one of the nation's largest home builders, is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission "regarding possible accounting and disclosure issues." The investigation opens a fresh round of scrutiny of the company. Its former chief executive, Bruce Karatz, is awaiting trial on federal charges he fraudulently manipulated stock options. In 2006, Karatz resigned after an internal investigation found he had backdated his own stock option grants to increase his pay. In 2008, Karatz agreed to pay more than $7 million to settle SEC charges but didn't admit wrongdoing.

KB Home narrowed its fiscal third-quarter loss, helped by fewer charges and higher revenue. Its stock rose 54 cents, or 4.6 percent, to $12.25 in premarket trading. But the homebuilder's backlog, which represents future housing revenue, dropped, and net orders fell 39 percent. The economic downturn, high unemployment and tight credit continue to keep many from buying homes, even with some of the lowest mortgage rates in decades. KB Home said Friday it lost $1.4 million, or 2 cents per share, in the three months ended Aug. 31. That compares with a loss of $66 million, or 87 cents a share, a year earlier.

KB Home, the Los Angeles-based homebuilder that targets first-time buyers, fell in New York trading after reporting a decline in quarterly profit and weaker gross margins. Net income for the fourth quarter ended Nov. 30 dropped to $13.9 million, or 18 cents a share, compared with $17.4 million, or 23 cents, a year earlier, the company said in a statement today. The results included a $19.8 million gain related to the wind-down of a mortgage-banking joint venture and a $6.6 million gain from a loan guarantee.

The former head of KB Home put up his Bel-Air mansion as bail Thursday and indicated he would plead not guilty to charges that he defrauded investors by backdating millions of stock options over six years and then lying about it. At a hearing in downtown Los Angeles, Bruce Karatz, 63, agreed to hand over his passport to federal court officials by the end of today and to pledge his home as collateral to cover $750,000 in bail. Karatz was charged March 5 by U.S. Atty. Thomas P.

A federal judge on Tuesday declined to investigate alleged misconduct by prosecutors in the stock option backdating case against former KB Home Chief Executive Bruce Karatz, citing an "astonishing" lack of evidence to support the allegations. In a motion filed last month, Karatz's lawyers accused prosecutors of manipulating witnesses in the upcoming trial, saying two former KB Home employees who once supported Karatz later changed their accounts after meeting with prosecutors. They asked the court to conduct a hearing to determine whether prosecutors crossed any lines during the investigation.

KB Home Corp., California's largest home builder, announced its eighth straight quarterly loss Friday, and company officials said they expect home prices to continue to fall in 2009. The company lost $307.3 million, or $3.96 a share, in the fourth quarter of 2008, but that was substantially less than the $772.7-million loss, or $9.99 a share, it reported for the same quarter in 2007. Nevertheless, the loss reported Friday exceeded the median estimate of $96.9 million, or $1.

The number of U.S. homes stuck in foreclosure ticked down slightly in February when compared with the same month a year earlier, new data released Thursday shows. Approximately 1.4 million homes, or 3.4% of all homes with a mortgage, were in foreclosure last month compared with 1.5 million in February 2011, according to Santa Ana research firm CoreLogic. That was flat compared with January. Banks completed about 65,000 foreclosures in February 2012, or about 1,000 more than in February 2011, and 10,000 more than the month prior, the research firm said.

The housing market remains wobbly as new-home sales slipped 1.6% in February, their second decline in a row. Sales of new single-family homes dropped to their slowest pace since October, reaching an annual rate of 313,000 from January's 318,000, the Commerce Department said Friday. The decline follows a 5.4% tumble in January. Across the country, sales were mixed, falling in the South and Midwest but rising in the Northeast and in the West. The data capped a week of promising economic indicators that had included strong auto sales, tumbling jobless claims and surging tourism spending.

The $25-billion foreclosure settlement between the government and major banks might lift the U.S. housing market over time. Just don't expect it to lift the stocks of U.S. home builders. Despite generally encouraging news for the industry lately — an improving economy, rising stock prices and excitement over the spring home-buying season — many analysts advise investors to stay away from shares of builders. In each of the last six years, stocks of builders such as KB Home, Lennar Corp.

The landmark $25-billion settlement of foreclosure abuses is pushing homebuilder stocks to their highest levels in almost a year. Investors are betting that the government's deal with the nation's five largest mortgage servicers could help stabilize the troubled housing market, eventually clearing the way for companies such as KB Home and Toll Brothers to ramp up building activity. Homebuilder stocks have jumped over the past two weeks as expectation of the deal spread. An index of large homebuilding stocks is up 10.3% this month, and some companies have risen much more than that.

Los Angeles home builder KB Home reported a 20% drop in earnings in its fiscal fourth quarter compared with a year earlier as the company sold fewer homes in areas that yield higher profits, usually more affluent neighborhoods. But net new orders for homes grew 38% and gave the company its biggest year-end backlog since 2008, Chief Executive Jeffrey Mezger said Wednesday. "We believe these results demonstrate our success in adapting to current market realities and positioning our business for the future," Mezger said.

KB Home, the Los Angeles-based homebuilder that targets first-time buyers, fell in New York trading after reporting a decline in quarterly profit and weaker gross margins. Net income for the fourth quarter ended Nov. 30 dropped to $13.9 million, or 18 cents a share, compared with $17.4 million, or 23 cents, a year earlier, the company said in a statement today. The results included a $19.8 million gain related to the wind-down of a mortgage-banking joint venture and a $6.6 million gain from a loan guarantee.

Los Angeles home builder KB Home's loss widened slightly in its fiscal third quarter as the nation's housing market continued to show weakness, although the company said orders for new homes increased. The company reported a loss Friday of $9.6 million, or 13 cents a share, for the quarter ended Aug. 31, compared with a loss of $1.4 million, or 2 cents, a year earlier. Revenue was $367.3 million, down 27% from $501 million during the year-earlier period. One bright spot: The company said its orders for new homes jumped 40% to 1,838 from 1,314 in the third quarter of 2010.