It's been a slow news week with little to blog about. With the change of the guard in DC there's not much going on there either. The market is still taking a beating and the Dec retail numbers are due out tomorrow. Those sales numbers are expected to be dismal. The market seems to be expecting that so I doubt there will be a serious decline, but ya never know these days.
On the housing front Beazer announced that sales were down 53.2%.
Home closings for the quarter ended December 31, 2008 totaled 938, a 53.2% decline from 2,006 homes closed during the same period in the prior fiscal year. Net new home orders totaled 551 for the quarter, a decrease of 56.0% from 1,252 net orders in the first quarter of the prior fiscal year. Net orders declined 48.9% in markets where the Company maintains a presence and 93.9% in markets the Company had previously announced it was exiting. The cancellation rate for the first quarter was 45.6%, compared to 46.6% for the same period in the prior year.
Ouch, that's gotta sting......