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Unfortunately, overall things haven’t improved all that much. Some states are showing a bit of recovery from problems, like California, but others are still struggling, and even those markets that weren’t affected as much by the housing distress are now having issues as their sales are fairly flat.

It begs this question; is this really the best time to buy a new home? That answer is “yes”, emphatically, and I’m going to give 4 reasons why.

1. Interest rates are very low. In many states mortgage lenders have rates as low as 3.99%; that’s phenomenal! Sure, many of them have tightened standards for giving out loans based off the crisis but if you can qualify for one you’ll be sitting pretty.

2. Even though 51% of all home sales nationally are of foreclosed homes, that’s not really such a bad thing. Some of the foreclosed homes were never lived in, while some of them were lived in for only a short period of time. Also, it means that in many states home sales are starting to outpace the rate of foreclosures, and that means that there will be a bigger demand for new homes at some point.

3. Home builders are still building new communities. We’ve read about homes being built in Texas, New York, California and many other states with the expectation that there will be buyers for those homes, and there seems to be. Those buyers that qualify for the low mortgage rates are finding that they’re able to get great deals on new homes as opposed to buying pre-existing homes, as well as negotiate for options and amenities that might have cost too much in the past.

4. Home builders are also offering deals you’ve never imagined before. For instance, Toll Brothers is offering up to $4,000 in airfare and vacation accommodations if you purchase a home in one of their communities in Florida. Other home builders are offering major discounts and free upgrades as enticements. Frankly, this is probably one of the best times in history for a buyer to feel special.

Ryland claims that they’ve built more than 285,000 thousand homes over the course of 30 years, starting with a master planned community in Maryland and growing from there. The name came about because the creator of the company saw a sign in Maryland with the M and A missing and liked the way the name looked.

Ryland has over 1,200 employees across its building area and has revenues of $1.2 billion in 2009. The present leadership includes CEO Larry Nicholson and president Yoshitsugu Motoda.

They have had a tough beginning to 2011. Home orders declined 17% in the first quarter of the year and their share price was down more than $19 million, nearly $5 million less than last year at the same time. Revenues dropped 30% from last year, although March started showing some signs of recovery. Yet they continue building new home communities, up to 218 from 177 at this time last year.

Ryland Homes is known for its customer service and its attention to detail, and they will work with potential home owners to try to give them what they want while also building communities with homes that are ready to move into.

Under its corporate name of Taylor Wimpey, the organization sold off all of its operations, which include Taylor Woodrow Holdings and Taylor Wimpey Holdings of Canada Corp., to TMM Holdings Ltd. Partnership, which is the investment side of JH Investments and a couple of other companies for $957 million. That includes Taylor Morrison, which has more than 280 communities throughout six states and is based in Scottsdale AZ.

Suffice it to say this is a big deal, and it highlights just how rough the housing industry had it over the past few years. When the original companies of Taylor Woodrow and Morrison Homes merged in 2008, they became one of the largest home building companies in the world at a time when the yearning for new homes was on the way down. Taylor Wimpey borrowed heavily to get into the deal, and will use proceeds from the sale to help pay down their debt. They will also concentrate more on their holdings in the United Kingdom, where housing has also suffered, but not to the degree it has in the U.S., and where even before the sale they were listed as only the #3 home builder in their country.

What this does for Taylor Morrison is gives them the reserves needed to ride out the worst of the housing debacle while still being able to provide more new homes in communities they believe are ready to sustain them in both the United States and Canada. It seems that both entities are extremely happy with the move, and in our opinion it was probably a life sustaining move beneficial to the American housing market long term.

Home builders didn’t do well either. Here’s a brief recap of some home builders that ran into problems in the first quarter.

Pasquinelli Homebuilding LLC, based in the Chicago area, filed for bankruptcy protection after a horrible 1st quarter. They started building homes in 1956 on the Chicago South Side and eventually expanded to building homes in 7 states. They filed stating they have liabilities of between $10 and $50 million.

KB Homes suffered a 1st quarter loss based on the fact that they’re building fewer homes and had a much lower net orders. The loss was $114 million, as compared to $55 million last year. They believe they’re ready to turn the corner in the 2nd quarter as they state there’s been more interest from consumers for new homes; we’ll see.

Lennar Corp also suffered a major loss from the first quarter of its share price after its profits dropped from the previous quarter. Overall they still made a profit of around $27 million, and compared to their loss of around $6 million from last year at the same time that’s not bad. However, their revenue dropped 3% from the previous quarter, which led their stock price to drop 5%.

D.R. Horton has been fined more than $70,000 for hazardous conditions at a work site in the Denver, CO area. Supposedly, workers were subjected to the possibility of falling hazards and inadequate training on how to use forklifts.

And after two reports, the first coming from the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index showing home prices dropped in 19 cities from December to January, along with a report from the Commerce Department that new-home sales plunged in February for the third month in a row, most major home builders saw a drop in their stock price. Some of those were:

D.R. Horton Inc. dropped 2%;

MDC Holdings Inc. dropped 2%;

KB Home dropped 2%;

Ryland Group Inc. dropped 2%.

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.

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.

It seems that there are predictions coming from entities such as the National Association of Home Builders, Barclays, and Moody’s Analytics Inc of new home sales increasing by 10% to 15% over last year. National home builders such as Toll Brothers and Lennar aren’t sitting by waiting for all housing markets to go back to peak conditions of 2006 either. Because of their size they’ve been able to hold out longer than smaller home builders and are getting financing and starting to build home communities throughout the country.

Their stock prices are continuing to rise as well. As bad as housing was throughout 2008 and 2009, a turnaround began at some point in 2010, and the S&P Supercomposite Homebuilding Index shows a 30% growth since Nov. 30. The S&P Index shows a 9.7% in the same period.

Something else that’s happened is that the large home builders have been able to step in and buy up properties that were owned by smaller home builders and thus were able to build up their portfolios with minimal cost, since they were able to get great deals in states like Nevada and Florida, where housing really took a tumble, and continues to suffer in large parts.

A growing home building season would solve a lot of woes for the housing industry, and as long as the big boys are building, it means there will be plenty of choices for potential homebuyers.

The national home builder has recently requested permits and is getting ready to start building in a few communities within Virginia. One of those communities is in the Spotsylvania County area where they recently applied for permits to build 6 homes.

Another community is in Loudoun County, where they will be building 16 homes that will each have at least 1/3rd of an acre of land. It’s already been announced that these will be luxury homes starting around $540,000, with 6 floor plans for buyers to choose from.

And this isn’t all. They’ve also applied for permits to build homes in Fredricksburg and Stafford Counties as well. All of these areas are in the northeastern part of the state, close enough to Washington D.C. to make them very attractive for commuters.

Richmond American may be hedging their bet on a recovery in this area, and it seems investors are following along with them, as Deutsche Bank, which recently lowered their price target for shares of the main holding company for their company, has listed them as a stock worthy of a “buy” rating. That’s good news no matter how you look at it.

This list isn’t comprehensive, but it does list 12 national home builders and their worth as of June 4th, 2010. It’s interesting to note that all except the top company lost net worth in the last year, but the market is starting to recover somewhat for these home builders, since they diversify and thus have some states where things are good and others where things aren’t going as well. What it does, however, is gives a listing that should be relatively easy to track from this date, through the NYSE. After all, if the stock prices of these companies goes up, then the housing industry overall should be just fine. If not… well, we’ll deal with that at a later time.

Below are 12 companies, with their stock symbol and price:

NVR Inc – NVR $660.02 (holding company which includes Ryan Homes)

MDC Holdings – MDC $28.32 (includes Richmond American Homes)

Toll Brothers – TOL – $21.18

Lennar Corp – $17.56

Ryland Homes – RYL $16.67

KB Home – KBH $12.56

D. R. Horton – DHI – $11.34

M/I Homes – MHO $10.82

Pulte Homes – PHM – $9.76

Hovnanian Enterprises – HOV – $6.30

Beazer Homes – $5.10

Standard Pacific – $4.92

Taylor Morrison

In 2007, the companies Taylor Woodrow and Morrison Homes, another UK based company, merged to become Taylor Morrison, instantly the fifth largest home builder in the world, and the number one home builder in the United Kingdom.  They are ranked in the top 15 home builders in the United States.

The merger brought unique qualities already identified with each original company.  Morrison Homes was known for single family residences for first time home owners, whereas Taylor Woodrow was known for building master planned communities and luxury homes, predominantly in the Florida area.  The new organization’s North American headquarters were located in Bradenton, FL, but in 2008 moved to Scottsdale, AZ.

The merger also brings a new corporate spirit into the mix, as Morrison Homes had been consistently known as one of the top five home building companies in the United States when it came to customer satisfaction.  The overall company has won the Best in American Living Award 36 times, more than any other home builder, and was recently one of the first home building companies inducted into their Hall Of Fame.  They have also been awarded by J. D. Power & Associates on numerous occasions and were given Builder Magazine’s Hall Of Fame Award.

Taylor Morrison has adopted the pledge originated under the Morrison Homes name known as Seven Steps To Satisfaction, which they say ” promises an attentive personal relationship with your builder, a customized design, a strong warranty, and an outstanding neighborhood”.  The seven stages of this pledge are:

• Step 1: Signature Selection Center Meeting – where homes are customized;
• Step 2: Owner’s Orientation Meeting – confirmation of plans before the homes begin building;
• Step 3: Mid-Construction (Pre-Drywall) Meeting – first stage of building, most specifically the frame and wiring review;
• Step 4: New Home Demonstration Meeting – the walk through before closing;
• Step 5: Two-Month Home Review;
• Step 6: 11-Month Home Review;
• Step 7: 22-Month Home Review

Recently, Taylor Morrison offered a short term program for buyers where they were matching the $8,000 tax credit offered to first time home owners from President Obama’s stimulus package, as well as upgrade offers depending on where the homes were being built that, in some instances, could have saved more than $50,000 on the cost of a new home.  This offer only lasted for a month, but it’s possible that they might run the program again in the near future.

Customer satisfaction, building in fifteen states and Canada, and innovative programs to help customers; Taylor Morrison is a breath of fresh air in the home building business, and someone you need to check out if they build where you live.

For more information about Taylor Morrison Homes, visit them online at www.TaylorMorrison.com