Beazer and the FBI

[Miesian Corners]

Bloomberg is reporting that the FBI will investigate Beazer Homes for possible fraud in its mortgage practices. Its shares fell 17% on the NYSE yesterday after this revelation. Glad the Disturber is finally delving into the world of real journalism. I cry no tears for Beazer and its ugly houses.

Stories here: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...&refer=home

and here: http://charlotte.com/109/story/65642.html

[Mobuchu]

Lets hope for a domino effect...

[nowensone]

A-GREED. I was sickened that Beazer "followed" us from Houston, where I was accustomed to bashing the utter crap of housing built and sold out there by a variety of firms, Beazer large among them. That they are strong in CLT saddened me and destroyed my arguments to my wife that the quality of housing was much higher here.

Beazer's web site looks stupid too, more like an on-line cookbook, not quite "right" for a firm that is involved in design (however much a stretch that is..)

[monsoon]

I am glad this is happening. Nevermind the landscape being scarred by endless very cheap starter home development, Belzer's tactics are also harming people who buy into these neighborhoods, and the taxpayer ends up paying the bill.

[cinco]

hallelujah! like mo' said - i hope this is just the beginning of an industry wide investigation. i hope the outcome is not only an end of their shifty loan practices - i also hope it buries some of these greedy, irresponsible companies. for too long these people have been left unchecked to profit off of unknowledgable, often credit poor people. while some uber-capitalists may agree with beazer etc. - the bottom line is they have been taking advantage of people. not to mention they have been building mini (sometimes mega) suburban ghettos. i hope these guy's get what's coming.

last night ABC world news highlighted the beazer "swindle" in concord. they have to be squirming.

i gotta give props to the "O" on this one.

[sfmartin]

Any chance this will stall/stop the Beazer development off Morehead? Maybe? Please?

[Vitamin_N]

Lets hope for a domino effect...

[rockhilljames]

I'm generally a free-market kind of guy, but Beazer (and builders like them) are genuinely harming the communites they service. The homes are cheap, the neighborhoods poorly planned, and they don't care about the impact they have on surrounding communities. When I say homes are cheap, I'm not knocking low-priced housing, I'm knocking how they're constructed. They use crappy materials, shoddy construction techniques and do the bare minimum required to meet code, and at times they don't even do that.

Drive by a new Beazer neighborhood and you'll be know where the ghettos will be located in 10 - 15 years. As a community we're going to have real problems with these neighborhoods as they age. Home values will plummet, many will begin to deterorate and have to be boarded up, and crime will move in.

I'm appalled that Beazer is developing a major tract near downtown.

[atlrvr]

^ I agree 100% with this post.

[SmellyCat]

Sleazer.

[Charlotte_native]

Any chance this will stall/stop the Beazer development off Morehead? Maybe? Please?

[Neo]

I agree with everyone so far, but just worry that now this tract might sit vacant and crappy for another couple years...

I'd rather see it remain as-is for another two or three years than have a chance of it turning into blight property in the future.

[Justadude]

Considering how much this scandal has already rocked Beazer, and considering that it will most likely get a lot worse for them soon, I'd be a little surprised if they weren't bankrupt by this time next year. They apparently lost $200 million in stock value yesterday... no company, let alone a homebuilder, can shrug off that kind of loss.

Hopefully this will be the end of the Morehead project; if not by Beazer's own choice, then because people run them out of town on a rail.

[ScottCLT]

I agree totally.

But, on an interesting note, I am currently on a business trip in the Mojave Desert, CA. I have noticed the Beazer signs here, and the communities behind them are worlds above what Beazer builds in the NC. Check this one out...

http://www.beazer.com/findHome/community.a...ommunityID=2513

These places look nice and of quality on the website, and they also do in person. Of course, they also start in the mid $300's and are around 100 miles away from LA in the desert. This place is horrible -- I don't know why anyone would want to live here, and especially in a $340K+ home across the street from a trailer park (literally), and in a city where the local Chili's is considered fine dining. Truly one of the worst places I've ever been in America. But for some reason Beazer is compelled to build some pretty damned nice homes here, but not in Charlotte.

[monsoon]

Yes. A lot of unfortunately has to do with the fact that our local planners and city governments don't have much vision on how a place should be developed. So they continue to approve these kinds of developments with little regard to the negative effects they will have on the city in the long run. While the Observer story took place in one of their developments in Cabarrus county, Charlotte is littered with them too and more continue to go up each day.

What needs to happen is that Charlotte should change the zoning laws which demand a higher standard than these vinyl clad boxes which are going to start falling apart in just a few years. One only has to look where this kind of development took place 20 years ago to find neighborhoods of decaying homes that have crime issues. Never mind the sustainability of such places.

While this exposure is good, I doubt anything is going to happen to Belzer since he no doubt complied with the letter of the law even though he was immorally, IMO, taking advantage of it in every way possible for corporate greed. This is the same type of thing that George Shinn did 25 years ago, the high school dropout who owns the former Charlotte Hornets, but with using a for profit college and scamming people to get student loans which never got repaid. The Observer did a similar story on him and why there were so many dropouts in his college, and he was investigated, and nothing came from it.

IMO, national home builders don't care about the places they build and I wish something could be done to limit how their actions in the Charlotte area.