Post-Bubble

The nation's third-largest home builder isn't talking these days. Spokesman Marshall Ames says Lennar executives are focusing on the business rather than interviews. The numbers speak for them: Lennar directly employed 13,687 at year-end 2005, not counting all the indirect jobs the builder spawned at its projects for subcontractors. Four years later, it employed 3,835. New homes delivered: 49,568 at the peak in 2006 compared with0 11,478 last year. Revenue was down 81% from 2006.

Lennar, which had a combined loss of $3.5 billion in the last three years, has repositioned its product to target first-time buyers and the value conscious. It turned a profit in the latest quarter and has been buying land and distressed assets. Sales traffic is picking up and micro-markets are improving, but the recovery in housing will continue to be a "rocky and sloppy stabilization process," CEO Stuart Miller told analysts in September.

The development, whose 80,000 residents spread over three counties make it a must-stop for politicians, is doing less than half the sales it did at the market peak. But that's still 2,000 homes a year, a pace it has kept for four years. "A great number," says vice president of community relations Gary Lester. Numbering more than 41,000 homes, the development is 10,000 homes from buildout. The age of the average buyer, 62, and the average sales price, $219,880, haven't changed for years.

Florida's second-largest landowner relocated from Jacksonville to be with its massive Panhandle land holdings. In 2005, the company employed 1,230. In February, it was down to 143. Revenue was down 81% last year from 2005, and the company lost $130 million.