Email Address* Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare via Email Share via Shortlink Lennar Executive Chairman Stuart Miller (iStock)Instead of spending on restaurants and movies, Americans’ funds went toward initial home purchases and upgrading to better homes.That is among the reasons Lennar Executive Chairman Stuart Miller attributed to the Miami-based homebuilder’s strong fourth quarter and fiscal year results, during an earnings call Thursday.“The home used to be just shelter,” he said. “Now it is the hub of our entire lives.”Lennar reported fourth quarter and fiscal year earnings of $882.8 million, up 31 percent year- over-year; and $2.5 billion, up 40 percent year-over-year, respectively. The company’s stock rose to $79.68 at 3:36 p.m. Thursday, up 7.2 percent from its closing price on Wednesday.In fiscal 2020, Lennar delivered 53,000 homes, a 3 percent annual increase. It received 56,000 new home orders, up 9 percent, year-over-year, according to the company.In the fourth quarter, the company delivered 16,000 homes, down 2 percent, year-over-year, and saw 15,000 new home orders, a 16 percent annual jump. The orders totaled $6.3 billion, up 22 percent, year-over-year.For next quarter guidance, Lennar expects new orders of 14,500 to 14,800, deliveries of 12,200 to 12,500, and a gross margin on home sales of 23.5 percent to 23.75 percent. It expects the average sales price of homes to be $390,000.For the 2021 fiscal year, the company expects new orders of 62,000 to 64,000, and a 23.75 percent to 24 percent gross margin on home sales. Lennar expects an average sales price of between $386,000 and $388,000.Among the factors Miller cited for making him bullish on Lennar’s future performance include retaining homebuyers, as customers upgrade to a new home with nicer kitchens and larger yards. And the company should see a windfall from its relationship with Opendoor, expected to go public in the near future, Miller said.He said past worries about millennials starting families later in life than their parents — thus becoming homeowners later — are dissipating. And the new use of home offices, home gyms and homes as daycare will keep demand strong into the new year.And even once discretionary spending on movies and restaurants returns after Covid-19 vaccines reach the masses, a strong economy will lead to continued appetite for homes, Miller said.Nationwide, the number of housing units under construction grew for the third month in a row, as housing continues to drive the construction industry. The last time single-family homes were built at this pace was 13 years ago, just before the housing bubble burst.Lennar is continuing to build homes in South Florida. It recently paid $13.7 million for land at Arden, a planned community in western Palm Beach County. It also purchased a former mobile home park in Homestead for $29 million, with plans to build a new housing community.Contact the author Full Name* Share via Shortlink Message* TagshomebuildersHousing Marketlennar
DC Ritz-Carlton penthouse seeks record-breaking price
Tagscondo marketWashington D.C. The penthouse at 3150 South Street in Washington, D.C. (Photos via Redfin; Homevisit)A penthouse at the Ritz-Carlton Georgetown in Washington, D.C., is hitting the market for $18 million.If it sells near that price, the 5,500-square-foot unit would break a record for the priciest condominium sold in Washington, according to the Wall Street Journal.The three-bedroom is one of five penthouse units at the Ritz-Carlton. It has 1,800 square feet of terrace space. The sale also comes with a small unit on the ground-floor of the building.The seller is the estate of Michelle Smith, the daughter of prominent area developer Robert H. Smith. Michelle Smith, who died last year, worked as a vice president for Charles E. Smith Residential Realty and its successor REIT, Archstone-Smith.She bought the two units for around $6 million in 2005. They were raw spaces that she built out over the ensuing years. Smith had the floors, moldings, and staircase built from limestone, and built out a wood-paneled library, office, bar, family room, and other spaces.ADVERTISEMENTListing agent Matt McCormick of TTR Sotheby’s International Realty estimated she spent $20 million on the purchase and work. Smith also furnished the unit with furniture by French designer Jean-Michel Frank and art by Alberto and Diego Giacometti, and Francois-Xaxier Lalane. Those objects and items, however, will be sold separately.There are no other units available in D.C. anywhere near the $18 million listing, according to prices on Redfin. The next most expensive unit on the market is asking $6 million. [WSJ] — Dennis Lynch Share via Shortlink
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NY Senate to pass housing discrimination bills
Sen. Anna Kaplan (Photos via Wikipedia Commons; iStock)The New York state Senate is set to approve a series of bills aimed at tackling the pervasive problem of housing discrimination.The legislative measures include stiffer penalties for violating fair housing laws, more hours of implicit bias training for real estate agents and an undercover testing program, Newsday reported.The move was prompted by Newsday’s three-year investigation, “Long Island Divided,” which found widespread housing discrimination among real estate agents on the island. The publication found that brokers engaged in discriminatory behavior, such as steering non-white home shoppers to certain neighborhoods or requiring minority buyers — but not white ones — to get mortgage pre-approvals to see listings.Read moreLawmakers call for stiff penalties, reform after housing discrimination probeState can now revoke real estate licenses for discriminatory practicesBiden executive order lays foundation for restoring fair-housing rule hamptons-weeklyhousing discriminationHousing Marketlong islandResidential Real Estatetristate-weekly Full Name* Tags Share via Shortlink Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare via Email Share via Shortlink Message* Email Address* The Senate followed with its own probe, which culminated in a 97-page report last month outlining steps the industry should take — including undercover testing, increasing licensing fees for agents and raising penalties for Fair Housing Act violations — to more effectively combat discrimination. The legislation set to pass on Monday incorporates some of those recommendations.There are laws on the books already to address housing discrimination, but those largely rely on self-monitoring. Measures like paired testing — in which people of different ethnic backgrounds and similar financial profiles pose as home shoppers to see if agents are complying with fair housing laws — are intended to hold the real estate industry accountable, according to the bill’s sponsor.“At the hearings, we heard from a lot of brokers and it became obvious some of them were not aware of what they were doing [wrong],” said Sen. Anna Kaplan, a Democrat representing North Hempstead. “This [bill] will allow us to see how we are progressing.”Once approved by the Senate, the bills will be sent to the Assembly for consideration. [Newsday] — Akiko MatsudaContact Akiko Matsuda
The creep of ice shelves theory
Budd’s expressions for strain-rate gradient along the centre line of a bounded ice shelf are shown to be applicable only to ice shelves with almost constant thickness and very small longitudinal strain-rates. A general expression is derived for creep in an ice shelf where the sole restriction is that of zero shear stresses in vertical planes. This is applied to the two special cases:(1)movement of an ice shelf restricted in at least one direction by sea-water pressure only;(2)movement of an ice shelf flowing between roughly parallel sides.
Age and position of the Ellsworth Mountains crustal fragment, Antarctica
The present geographical position of the Ellsworth Mountains is geologically anomalous on account of their stratigraphy, which does not relate to western Antarctica, their structural trend, approximately perpendicular to the trend in adjacent regions, and their relief, the greatest, and possibly the youngest, in Antarctica. These factors suggest that the Ellsworth Mountains are not in their original position but have moved, probably during the Cainozoic.
Antarctica — A unique laboratory for atmospheric studies by optical methods
Optical methods of studying the atmosphere are one valuable means of investigating atmospheric behaviour at heights ranging from less than 1 km to several hundred km. Some examples are given of results from various optical experiments carried out at Halley, Antarctica (76oS, 27oW;L=4.2), as is a consideration of the results of some complementary experiments. By combining observations made using different techniques, an improved understanding of atmospheric, ionospheric and magnetospheric processes is obtained.
The ionospheric footprint of antiparallel merging regions on the dayside magnetopause
The antiparallel merging hypothesis states that reconnection takes place on the dayside magnetopause where the solar and geomagnetic fields are oppositely directed. With this criterion, we have mapped the predicted merging regions to the ionosphere using the Tsyganenko 96 magnetic field model, distinguishing between regions of sub-Alfvénic and super-Alfvénic magnetosheath flow, and identifying the day-night terminator. We present the resulting shape, width and latitude of the ionospheric dayside merging regions in both hemispheres, showing their dependence on the Earth’s dipole tilt. The resulting seasonal variation of the longitudinal width is consistent with the conjugate electric fields in the northern and southern cusps, as measured by the SuperDARN HF radars, for example. We also find a seasonal shift in latitude similar to that observed in satellite cusp data.
Evolution of energetic electron pitch angle distributions during storm time electron acceleration to megaelectronvolt energies
We investigate the pitch angle distributions of 0.15-1.58 MeV electrons observed during the 9-15 October 1990 storm measured by the Combined Release and Radiation Effects Satellite (CRRES) spacecraft. This storm period is characterized by an enhancement in the electron flux at L approximate to 4 by more than an order of magnitude over the prestorm level. The overall change in flux at L approximate to 6.6 is small in comparison. Previous work shows that radial diffusion underestimates the flux enhancement by up to a factor of 5 for L less than or equal to 4.5 [Brautigam and Albert, 2000], indicating the need for an additional acceleration process. The pitch angle distributions presented here are examined for evidence of the acceleration mechanism. The distributions at L approximate to 2 are rounded and are dominated by Coulomb collisions. They show little variation during the storm. The distributions at L approximate to 3 are pancake-shaped before the storm, characteristic of pitch angle scattering by plasmaspheric hiss. During the main phase, they become broad and flat, and they evolve back into pancake distributions during the recovery phase. At L approximate to 4-6, the pitch angle distributions are characterized as butterfly distributions at storm onset, and they become broad flat top distributions during the recovery phase. The flat top distributions persist throughout the similar to3-day recovery phase and are observed in the region of highest flux enhancement. The flat top distributions are energy dependent and are broader at lower energies (30degrees-150degrees) than at higher energies (50degrees-130degrees). The higher energies exhibit a much faster fall off toward the loss cone than at lower energies. Inward radial diffusion should result in anisotropic distributions peaked near 90degrees and does not explain the observed energy dependence. Furthermore, the direction of diffusion is outward at higher energies. Model calculations of the pitch angles resonant with whistler mode waves show that flat top distributions are consistent with pitch angle and energy scattering in regions where f(pe)/f(ce)similar to1. Although radial diffusion may be very important for particle energization, the observed pitch angle distributions provide strong evidence that wave particle interactions play an important role in the energization process.
Reproductive biology and biochemical composition of the brooding echinoid Amphipneustes lorioli on the Antarctic continental shelf
The bathyal West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) shelf experiences intense seasonal variability in primary production, with summer phytoplankton blooms yielding intense pulse of phytodetritus to shelf sediments. Echinoderms form a conspicuous proportion of the deposit-feeding megabenthos on the shelf and of these Amphipneustes lorioli was the most abundant irregular echinoid. To explore the reproductive response of A. lorioli to this seasonal production cycle, A. Lorioli was sampled at one location on the WAP shelf during four separate cruises between March 2000 and March 2001. Reproductive patterns were determined by histological analyses of gonad tissue, and elemental (CHN) analyses were used to estimate the nutritional and energetic status of the body tissues. Histological analysis of the brooding echinoid A. lorioli suggested a quasi-continuous gametogenic pattern in both the ovaries and the testes. Biochemical analysis of the gonads and the gut tissues were consistent with a continuous gametogenic cycle, showing no significant changes in the biochemical composition of the tissues among seasons. Size-frequency distributions of the embryo and juvenile echinoids within the adults’ brood pouches revealed a synchronous recruitment of embryos and juveniles in specific cohorts between different adult specimens. Whilst this occurrence of different cohorts of the developing brood may be an adaptation to limited brood space, there may also be an external factor influencing the synchrony between adult individuals. Nonetheless, a continuous gametogenic cycle and the lack of seasonal variation in the biochemical composition of gonad and gut tissues suggest that this deposit-feeding irregular urchin is exploiting a persistent sediment food bank in WAP shelf sediments throughout much of the year.
An attempt to revisit the global biogeography of limno-terrestrial Tardigrada
The major increase in distribution records of limno-terrestrial tardigrades over the last ten years has enabled us to reassess the global biogeography of the Tardigrada using cluster analysis, principal components analysis and parsimony analysis of endemism (PAE). Although the new clustergram topology shows a close correlation with those we originally presented in 1998, the PAE outputs warrant a radical reinterpretation of the results as they imply that the Laurasian fauna is derived and the Gondwanangroups basal. The distribution of endemic tardigrade genera and families provides some support for this argument though the findings should be viewed with some caution as PAE has its detractors and has not been previously applied on a ‘global’ scale.