K&B; Takes Aim at Mid-Range Housing Market : Construction: Long known for its low-cost homes, Kaufman & Broad forms a subsidiary to build for the $200,000 to $300,000 price range.

Roland F. Osgood, former head of residential development for Irvine Co., has been named by Kaufman & Broad Home Corp. to launch a subsidiary to crack the mid-range Southern California housing market that has eluded the company for years.

The yet-to-be-named division will not carry a Kaufman & Broad designation--a deliberate effort to create a separate identity for the new unit in home buyers’ minds.

Osgood, in a telephone interview Wednesday, said the unit will be headquartered in Orange County and will operate in Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, initially building homes in the $200,000 to $300,000 market.

Kaufman & Broad Home, based in Los Angeles, is known for “functional homes at the bottom end of the pricing scale, and a lot of buyers--especially in Orange County--are label-conscious, so creating a separate company is a good strategy, “ said Michael Meyer, managing partner for accounting and consulting company Kenneth Leventhal & Co. in Newport Beach.

“It is a coup for them to sign Osgood,” Meyer added. “He has the skills of an entrepreneur and the ability to work in a large organization. He is a businessman and he knows what the consumer wants.”

Osgood, 52, said the new company’s first project should be under way by early next year. The subsidiary will initially concentrate on the Orange County market “because that’s where my most recent experience has been.”

He said the idea of creating a separately named division to build more expensive homes is borrowed from the automobile industry. “This is a market of a lot of segments, and we are trying to capture more of them, just like General Motors does by selling both Chevrolets and Cadillacs.”

Osgood said he has hired Patricia White, a former Irvine Co. financial executive, as the new division’s chief financial officer.

While Kaufman & Broad Home has tried in the past to break into the move-up market, the company has had problems persuading consumers that it can compete with the premier high-end builders. Osgood has been involved in the Southland home building industry since 1968, when he joined Broadmoor Homes.

He was chief financial officer of that company during its heyday “as it grew into one of the premier quality . . . move-up builders in the state, probably the nation,” said Irvine marketing consultant Ken Agid.

At Broadmoor, Agid said, Osgood “was part of an organization that built a very strong reputation in exactly the market this new K&B; division is aiming at.”

Osgood joined Irvine Co. as president of its Irvine Pacific home building unit in 1978. When the company stopped building homes in 1986, Osgood was picked to head the giant developer’s land management arm and coastal development operations. He resigned from the company last August.

He said Wednesday that he left because “I am a home builder and I wasn’t able to build homes for five years.”