Although no formal word has come from the company itself, recent reports indicate that Gunstra Builders may be the next builder in the Indianapolis area to close its doors. Gunstra has “shut down most of its sales offices and stopped communicating with clients” according to a recent story in the Indy Star. Gunstra has, or had, 15 communities around the Indianapolis area including Carmel, Fishers, Zionsville, and Plainfield. We will have to what finally shakes out, but it doesn’t look good for Gunstra.
Most of you recall Davis homes recently going belly up as well as KB Homes pulling out of the Indianapolis market. Gunstra could be the next casualty of the “housing crisis”.
Although it is easy to have a visceral reaction to news like this and conclude that this can only make things worse, I tend to disagree. No doubt this is a result of gluttonous builders over saturating the marketplace and building homes at an unsustainable rate. However, I believe as sad as it is for a builder to go out of business; the inevitable affect will be a decrease in housing construction and that can only help the current state of affairs. What is sad to me is that these tough times tend to gobble up local smaller builders that cannot weather the storm as easily as huge national builders. While the big guys, Ryland, Pulte, etc. build a fine home I just think it is nice to have a local flavor in the marketplace where the owners have roots and a vested interest in the community they are building in.
What do think? If Gunstra goes under, is this good or bad for Indianapolis real estate?
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Date: 2008-11-06 08:20:25Views: 3236
Comments
insider
i hear estridge is next stay tuned.
billy bob
You are so stupid, you must be a mormon! Good for builders to fail you say??? Dork!
Bill
off course bad for Indianapolis real estate, its one of the stressful in specially in this situation, will hope they will be stabilize soon.
Mike Taylor
@ insider - I have not heard that one. I know CP is hurting, but I have not heard anything about Estridge.
@ "billy bob" - With such an intelligent retort I hardly know where to begin to respond to your comment. I will simply say this: I believe at this point in time less competition and less homes on the market is an overall good thing for the real estate market. Of course I don't want to see businesses fail and people lose jobs, but one less builder out there slashing price may actually help our situation.
JCL
Billy Bob: it is hard to take your argument seriously without intelligent points.
I tend to agree, let the free market work itself out... sometimes this is painful, but we all benefit in the long term.
james wheelock
The way I see it Mike made an intelligent point. Reduction of inventory is in everyway a positive to stabilize things. Builders have over built in most of this country and they need to stop for things to clean up. Since they have to continue to build to make money the only way to reduce inventory is for them to go under.
James Wheelock
We just had a very big builder close go bancrupt here in Houston as well. I believe the number and the rate that builders are failing should leave consumers thinking twice about buying a new home. At least when you purchase a previously owned home it has had time to settle and let you know what kind of troubles you might have with it. A new home is a whole different ball of wax as many things can go wrong with them in the first couple of years due to settling and the fact that all of the parts have never worked together before. The home warranty can easily be dodged if the builder chooses to go bancrupt on the project since most set up individual LLCs for their developments.