Home Builders List

There’s a nice new trend that’s starting to grow across the United States. There have always been local home builders that concentrated on making energy efficient homes. Now it seems that national home builders are getting into the act, and this isn’t a bad thing.

KB Homes is now starting to rate their homes using symbols that make people think of MPG (miles per gallon) and setting up a rating system for consumers to understand. The idea is to let people know what their energy rates might be on homes throughout certain areas. They’ve been working on creating newer energy efficient homes that can attain Energy Star ratings and certifications.

And they’re not alone Beazer Homes, one of the top 10 home builders in the country, has made it their mission to make every single home they build hie Energy Star certification as well. They had already created their eStart program, but now they’re going further in taking away the option for buyers to have energy efficiency or not by adding these standards at no extra cost to their consumers.

Of course it’s not just national home builders going this route. Recently McGuyer Homebuilders of Dallas announced that they were building 300 LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) green homes that would easily attain an Energy Star efficiency rating. LEED standards are actually higher than Energy Star, so this commitment is outstanding and will be cost efficient on the back end for its owners.

Across the board these are great moves by home builders because they’ll help the environment and help buyers save money in the long run. I’m only waiting for this same type of thing to start happening more in the northeast and northwest, where winters can be costly.

Has housing finally turned the corner? That question is still up in the air depending on who you ask, but if you believe investors, good times have come again.

Last week showed that many of the national home builder stocks increased nicely, ending a long negative trend that threatened to collapse the industry. Signs such as home starts rising and home prices stabilizing after falling, in some instances, more than 50% over the past two years, are indications that things might be moving in a better direction. Foreclosures are still higher than rates 5 years ago, but they’re finally slowing down, although it’s unsure if they’re slowing down because people have more money or because there just aren’t enough homes out there to be foreclosed upon at this juncture to keep the rate high.

In any case stock prices are up. Here’s a look at 5 of our favorite national home builders:

* D.R. Horton Inc. rose 1.4% percent, to $12.49

* Hovnanian Enterprises Inc. rose 2.5%, to $4.47

* KB Home rose 2.4%, to $14.68

* Lennar Corp. rose 1.9%, to $20.85

* Toll Brothers rose 2.1% percent, to $21.91

It’s no wonder that national home builders feel that the time has come to start building again. Many of them are coming back into the market building smaller homes than before 3 years ago, and that means home buyers should be able to afford new homes if that’s what they want. Everyone is ready for housing to come back, and it looks like it might be on its way.