Home Builder Getting Ready

Home builders have begun buying land along the I-15 corridor for new housing subdivisions after sitting on the sidelines for the first half of the year, according to the principal of a land brokerage that does business in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
Tom Doyle, of Whittlesey Doyle, told commercial industry representatives that home builders purchased only two parcels in Inland Southern California in the first half of the year, but that since then they have closed or entered escrow on 55 parcels.
Doyle said renewed builder competition for land has pushed up prices by as much as 25 percent. But he said large builders are game to buy anyway because they are running out of finished lots and need land to remain in business. He said in most cases the land they are acquiring is too expensive to build houses on today that could be priced low enough to attract home buyers.
He said the builders seem to expect that residential home prices in Eastvale and other popular communities along the I-15 will rise enough so that in 18 months they can build houses on the land they bought and sell them at a small profit.