RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE : Kaufman & Broad’s Vintage Subsidiary Changes Its Tack

Vintage Communities, the subsidiary of Kaufman & Broad Homes Inc. formed last year to give the company a separate identity in the luxury-home market, has fallen victim to the times.

Officials at Vintage, based in Newport Beach, have apparently discovered--as have other builders before them--that there isn’t much of a market now for $350,000 and $400,000 houses. So Vintage has been concentrating on the same first-time and move-up buyer homes that Los Angeles-based Kaufman & Broad builds and has decided to take advantage of the K&B; name and advertising budget in those projects.

The existing Vintage Communities projects will continue to be marketed under that name, subsidiary President Roland Osgood said. But Vintage’s new projects are being built and sold as products of Kaufman & Broad of Southern California/South Coast.

Osgood and his staff wear all the hats in both companies, with Osgood leading as president of Vintage Communities and of the K&B; South Coast division.