BUILDER Online's Housing Headlines

Some analysts have argued that starting from scratch could create more problems than they would solve, in part because Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee around half of the nation’s $11 trillion in home mortgages. “Blue sky ideas are great, but they take a long time to happen,” said Mahesh Swaminathan, senior mortgage strategist at Credit Suisse, at a conference last month. “When you have $5 trillion of agency mortgages, you can’t really orphan them.”

“You’ve heard the mantra ‘downsize me’ and ‘small is the new big?’ Well, last year was definitely a downer,” said Carol Lavender, president of Lavender Design Group, a residential design firm in San Antonio, Texas.

There was a lot of optimism in Las Vegas this week, and it didn’t just come from gamblers playing the slots. As I walked around the annual International Builders’ Show, which wraps up today, everyone seemed upbeat-and it wasn’t the mechanical “we-must say-things-have-to-get-better” with a forced grin, either. The attendees and exhibitors genuinely think 2010 is going to beat the heavily-depressed 2009.

Miami builder Sergio Pino picked up an autographed photo of former Gov. Jeb Bush with Rothstein for $1,500. Pino, the president of Century Homebuilders, also bought a framed photo of Rothstein with Florida Gov. Charlie Crist for a cool $2,100. That photo, which Pino said he hopes to now sell for $2,400, includes a signature from Crist declaring “Scott - you’re amazing!”

SAN ANTONIO — The company who built the homes affected by a landslide on the Northwest Side has agreed to pick up the tab for the residents’ hotel stay and meals. About 80 homes in the Hills of Rivermist were evacuated Sunday after what first appeared be a sinkhole turned into a major landslide. The homes were built by Centex, which is owned by Pulte Homes

CINCINNATI — For the first time in history, there’s a new leader for the largest homebuilder company in the Tri-State. Fischer Group has replaced Drees Company as the area’s most prolific homebuilder.

Home remodelers that have been hammered by the recession can look forward to better times in 2010. Forecasters say the home improvement and fix-up business should pick up this year after a 25 percent slide in activity since 2007.

The programs have Realtors and home builders betting on a fast-tracked home buying season. Buyers who traditionally would have waited until the spring or summer to make a move will likely front load their purchases this year, said Terry Hanker, executive vice president of Mariemont-based Comey & Shepherd Realtors.

Some of the hottest action at the International Builders’ Show last week in Las Vegas was between lenders and home builders seeking financing to build. The rates lenders were offering ranged from 12 percent to 15 percent with some banks and private equity funds asking as much as 20 percent.

While officials of the Miami-based company declined comment on its business strategy beyond a news release, others said Lennar could buy partially finished lots for pennies on the dollar, complete the construction and sell homes for significant profits.

The housing market isn’t yet in the clear, but it’s also not as weak as Monday’s home-sales report might suggest.

First-time homebuyers in the New Orleans area may soon find it more difficult to purchase a home after the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced changes last week to shore up a key loan guarantee program.

“It has become clear to us through this process that the only viable alternative to bankruptcy would be to transfer control and operation of the property, in an orderly manner, to the lenders and their representatives,” the venture said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal. “We make this decision as we feel a battle over the property or a contested bankruptcy proceeding is not in the long-term interest of the property, its residents, our partnership or the city.”

“I was hoping to find a pattern, and there was no pattern,” Nevin said. “Even in neighborhoods where there was a lot of activity, you would have thought, with 300 to 400 sales, you could be pretty reliant on the accuracy of the numbers. I’m not seeing that.”

The U.S. government’s move to deepen its ties to mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by agreeing to absorb unlimited losses for the next three years is igniting a debate over whether it should bring the business operations of the companies onto its books.