Home Builders Update

Nathan Rothschild, founder of one of Europe’s most-powerful economic dynasties, uttered one of the most frequently quoted maxims on investment timing in the early 19th Century when he said, “The best time to buy is when blood is running in the streets.”

Now, blood is running in the streets for this industry and the homebuilders are getting their rear-ends kicked by Wall Street, the media and anyone else that will jump on the bandwagon.

So, when will the bottom arrive? Who the hell knows? And if someone tells you they know, just walk away because they are fooling themselves and anyone who listens.

The bottom may be near but the upswing could take years if you go back and research history. Badly beaten down industries can take anywhere from two to five years to rebound and start trading higher.

With that said, I would like to tell you why I feel that NVR Homes (NVR) is the best bet when the bottom does arrive and we start to see some life in this area.

Let’s start with the charts above. They shows us that NVR now has the sixth largest market cap and is the only leading US Big Builder to boast a current ROE above the double digit threshold (positive of course). Of the ten other major players, only Ryland Group (RYL) has a positive ROE while writing this piece. This is major because every one of these stocks were reporting 20%+ ROE’s over the past five to seven years with several of them averaging 35% or better. NVR had an ROE of 105.2% in 2003, 78.7% in 2004 and 92.3% in 2005.

NVR was one of the smarter builders by scaling back their land purchases in 2005 and 2006 when everyone else was going nuts buying land that was way overvalued. They were also the only homebuilder to receive a report card grade of A- by Big Builder Magazine in the May 8, 2007 edition. The magazine said:

NVR’s inimitable focus on EPS growth through capital allocation discipline and land-risk minimization has positioned the company to weather a deep and long downturn in superb condition. The company’s extreme concentration in the Washington, D.C., market and its immediate environs exposes it to that market’s vulnerabilities but allows for peerless operational discipline and flexibility in light of situational opportunities that emerge before a wider recovery. The company’s market share strength in its competitive arena give it leverage in renegotiating terms on optioned takedowns, allowing the builder to remain in control of assets even in a slower sales pace environment.

Financially, the company is maintaining its leadership role in areas such as cash flow, earnings, long term debt, ROA, ROE, net income and revenue. Since they are writing off the least amount of land due to their foresight in 2005, they are managing to keep their financial numbers above their peers and remain the best investment from this industry for Wall Street.

Finally, we must look to the charts where we see that NVR has the strongest relative strength (RS) rating versus every one of its peers in the industry. NVR is the only stock of the big builders to show a double digit gain over its price from one year ago; up 15.82%. Actually, MDC is the only other stock to show a positive gain from this time last year at 8.77%. Comparatively, BZH is down over 73% and HOV is down 55%.

Looking at the next set of charts, we can see that NVR has dropped the least year-to-date versus the other leading builders in the US. They have only corrected by 11.47% while the rest of the pack has corrected by an average of 45%. Once again, BZH has dropped the most in 2007 at 78.09% with HOV right behind at 65.04%.

Therefore, I rate NVR the best value buy in this group when it decides to hit bottom and turn higher over the next couple of years. Long term, I see NVR reaching the $700 to $800 range while some of the other builders will still be struggling to reach $15 to $20 per share. Amateur investors may argue that it is easer for a $12 stock to go to $20 but I will argue and place my money behind the $550 stock to move $250 points higher to $800. NVR almost reached $1,000 per share at its peak and I have no doubt that we will see it there one day but that could take a long time and beaten down industries need years to recover.

FYI: I do NOT own any shares in any of the companies listed below. If I do buy in this industry, it will most likely be NVR based on the intelligence of its management leadership.