In the past two years, more than a dozen home building companies have turned to the public markets to blunt the impact of the lingering credit crunch. Unable to get financing from traditional capital sources to build and to grow, builders have found a bounty of capital in the corridors of Wall Street.
“The banks kept increasing the amount of equity needed to fund projects,” says Ira Norris, who took Inco Homes public in the spring in a $20 million initial public offering (IPO). “At the same time they were taking longer to fund construction loans. We were running out of cash.”
Going public is an option for only the 150 or so largest home building …
