Homebuilder Meritage Homes shuts down Sacramento office - Sacramento Business Journal:

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The company has closed its Sacramento office, laid off about a dozen employees and called others back to itsConcord office, including Sacramento division president Mike The company plans to continue sales and constructionn at its eight new-home projects aroundd Sacramento, regional president Dennis Welschu said. "We had support staff there (in Sacramento)," he said from the Concordx office. "It didn't really make sense to keep operatinbg inmultiple locations. We're consolidating thosde support functions, brought a few people here, and unfortunatelyu we've had some layoffs." The layoffs included accounting and humanresources personnel.
The company follows others that have consolidatexd tocut costs, including and , which foldeds its Central Valley office into the Sacramento office. All homebuilderx have gone through layoffs. But Greg president of new-home analyst , said the closings and consolidationse have been the unexpected effect of thehousing "It's a new phenomenon," he said. "We haven'tt seen this type of contraction before.
" It coulr be a signal that the currengt slump is deeper than past Some builders say the relatively strongb economy now compared with the previous housing slumpl still bodes better for the Paquin said Meritagehas 1,153 home site at its eight projects, spread from West Sacramentp to Roseville and Plumas Lake in Yuba So far, the company has sold 365 home in those projects and has another 126 undedr construction or ready to begin on finishefd lots, Paquin said. Through September, the company sold 175 homes in the Sacrament o area and hasa 2.8 percent market share, according to analysr .
Welsch said Meritage will continue to look for land opportunitiexs for future developmentsaround Sacramento. Scottsdale, Ariz.-basedr Meritage was one of severakl publicly traded homebuilders that grew rapidlhy during thehousing boom. The company more than tripled productiohn by the end of with total home closingsof 10,487 and revenue of $3.5 billion, according to the companyy Web site. Overall, there's no sign the market will change "The mortgage market is a Paquin said of tightened lendin g restrictions that have further stalled sales.
The only bright spot, he was that September sales were briskerthan