“Accept No Substitutes” (or Proxies) No, “Which companies are in S&P’s Homebuilders ETF?” isn’t a, “Who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb?” question. It turns out that a majority of stocks in the index don’t make homes — they make the things that go in them. That includes bed manufacturer** Tempur Sealy (3rd largest position); carpeting giant Mohawk Industries...Read More
Realtor Name-Dropping After almost a decade attending Edina Realty “Exceptional Properties” meetings — held weekly at an upper bracket Twin Cities home — I figure I’ve now heard my colleagues sing the praises of something like 2,000 homes, cumulatively worth a cool $3 billion or so (and have pitched a few of my own listings at such meetings). And yet, I...Read More
No More Minnesota McMansions John Murphy Reports has a nice post about which builders are putting up the most new residential construction in Minnesota these days. What caught my eye: –The list is (still) dominated by big, national developers like Lennar, Pulte/Centex, and D.R. Horton (#1, #2, and #3, respectively). Mattamy (#5) is Canadian. –The...Read More
Cleaning Up After the Elephants; or, “Love ’em and Leave ’em” It was fun — sort of — while it lasted. But what a hangover! In 2004, when local land went for $120k an acre, national home builder Toll Brothers swept into the Twin Cities paying . . . $200k an acre. Why? Because it...Read More
