Then, Sedam says, the rep got to a real money-drainer: the seven trips per house that the dealer had to make to supply trim. Another builder needed just two deliveries by that same dealer. “The lumber company’s trip cost calculations showed a very conservative cost of $125 per wasted trip, and it proposed a goal of reducing that to three trips over the next six months,” Sedam recounts in a recent column in Builder. “…If achieved, the lumber company would drop its package price to the builder by $500 per unit. The builder team members’ eyes got big, and they resolved to get to work.”

In other areas, it means the dealer continues to take over builder responsibilities, such as turnkey framing. Since ramping up its installed sales program three years ago, 84 Lumber now installs windows, shingles, siding, interior trim, doors, insulation, and housewrap in addition to doing turnkey framing.

“It’s a lot easier when you can sell the product and actually install it,” Sento says. “The builder actually prefers it.”

Energy Efficient. Being economically efficient isn’t the only efficiency on the mind of some big builders, though. Big builders are attempting to pass on energy and dollar savings to end-users through the building of greener homes.

Last January, Beazer Homes USA revealed it was expanding the number of green features it includes as standard in its homes, including improvements in energy efficiency, water conservation, and indoor air quality. All new homes built by Beazer include additional air sealing and framing techniques that allow for more insulation in the homes, denser insulation within walls and attic spaces, and energy-efficient low-e windows in every house at no additional cost.

“Quite frankly, builders have been moving in that direction for some time,” Snyder says. Their designs stress efficient use of materials and appliances, as well as meet new demands for greener buildings, he says.

Beazer’s latest products include a home energy monitor, a programmable thermostat, compact fluorescent light bulbs, and an Energy Star dishwasher. To conserve water, plants with minimal water requirements are used in landscaping, and water-saving fixtures are the norm for bath faucets and showerheads. To improve air quality, paints and carpets that emit lower amounts of volatile organic compounds are used, and every home has high-efficiency MERV 8 air filters and carbon monoxide detectors.

Beazer CEO Ian McCarthy said energy efficiency was the No. 2 priority for home buyers behind quality of living space, citing an NAHB survey last year.

“Beazer’s eSMART high-performance homes provide the most advanced eco-friendly features of any production home builder,” McCarthy said in announcing the program.

But Beazer isn’t alone in the quest for greener pastures. Pulte Homes was recognized last November by the U.S. Green Building Council with the 2009 Leadership for Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Award for Homes Outstanding Production Builder Award for the builder’s Villa Trieste development in Summerlin, Nev.

The 185-unit planned community features LEED platinum single-family homes. All boast solar panel roofs, while a 35% decrease in indoor water use is promised.

Not to be outdone, KB Home is building all of its new homes in Las Vegas–in both new and existing communities–to the Energy Plus guidelines set by NV Energy, a local utility. KB says the move expands on its existing strategy to build all homes to Energy Star standards.

In Las Vegas, new KB homes are expected to be 45% more efficient than homes built 10 years ago, while allowing homeowners to reduce their carbon footprint and monthly utility bills for years to come, the company said.

“Energy Plus certified homes drive down costs associated with day-to-day living in a home,” Jim Widner, regional president of KB Home, said when announcing the program.

With land prices dropping, some big builders are looking to buy in again rather than sell out.

In Tucson, Ariz., D.R. Horton recently bought 203 lots in five neighborhoods for about $5.8 million in cash. The majority once belonged to the now defunct Canoa Homes.

Will White, who brokered the deal for SunChase Holdings, Canoa’s parent company, says he regards the purchase as a sign big builders are ready to pounce on land deals and that inventory is on the move again.

“The method has sharpened from how they buy land to how they build homes,” Snyder says.

“It’s going to be a little while before we come out of this thing,” says Sento. “We had nearly 23 years of growth and we were winning Super Bowls in this industry for a very long time.”

Rehab Projects

Local builders and remodelers are transforming themselves even as they struggle to survive the recession.

Two of ProSales’ sister publications, Builder and Remodeling, both recently analyzed prospects for what are LBM dealers’ two biggest customer groups. Their conclusions: Sea changes are under way in both sectors, and the economy won’t provide any help in surviving the transformation.

“The country’s plunge off the economic cliff has changed everything,” Remodeling editorial director Sal Alfano wrote. “And while there are signs that conditions are improving, it seems clear that when prosperity returns, the remodeling business will look nothing like what we were used to.”

Meanwhile, a Builder survey found that 35% of the respondents were finding conditions deteriorating, 30% said conditions were holding steady, and only 31% felt conditions were improving. Unlike the big builders chronicled elsewhere on these pages, the Builder poll focused on small builders; three-quarters of the respondents built one to 10 homes per year and have annual revenues of less than $5 million.

It also found small builders trying many of the same tactics as their bigger brethren. Fifty-six percent said they are building smaller homes, 47% of the group value engineer to achieve more bang for the buck, and 16% were offering fewer plans and elevation styles. Only one out of six respondents hadn’t changed any part of its design strategy.

The builders’ continued money troubles imply that dealers will need to continue being diligent in getting paid. One-quarter of the 453 respondents said they had been unable to get financing during the three months before the survey was conducted in November, and 24% reported some trouble obtaining financing before the money arrived. Another 36% didn’t even bother seeking financing last fall, leaving just 15% saying they had no trouble getting loans.

Meanwhile, Remodeling noted that big jobs were harder to come by, and those that did pop up often were smaller than they were in the past. “The family room addition priced at $200,000 in boom times now comes in at $160,000,” it said. “Same square footage but value engineered to cost less.” Some of the biggest remodeling groups have set up or expanded handyman divisions that specialize in small jobs.

“I think right now we will do anything anybody calls us for,” Remodeling quoted Alan Hanbury, of the House of Hanbury in Newington, Conn., as saying. One reason why, he says, is because of a shift in the food chain. In the past, he said, builders would have handed to him leads for such modest projects as building additions and remodeling basements. Now builders are so hungry they’re keeping those jobs, leaving Hanbury to hunt for scraps.