Developer Lays Off 14 Workers in O.C. and San Diego : Construction: The New Jersey-based home-builder had entered the local market with fanfare just last year.
A major East Coast home-builder that entered the Southern California housing market just last year has laid off 14 workers in Orange County and San Diego, and closed its San Diego division.
Some real estate sources said the home-builder, Hovnanian Enterprises Inc., may scale back its Southern California operations even more in the wake of declining home sales and housing prices here, but Nick Pappas, president of the company’s Newport Beach division, insisted that Hovnanian is “here to stay.”
“This company is committed to business in Southern California,” Pappas said. “We have had some changes, but it’s just a reorganization of the way we do business.”
In June, 1994, Hovnanian Enterprises Inc., one of the nation’s largest home-builders, purchased StoneBrook Homes in Newport Beach and acquired 98 housing sites in Yorba Linda in hopes of capitalizing on an expected real estate recovery in Southern California.
Pappas predicted at the time that Hovnanian would build up to 400 homes in Southern California by next October. Now, it expects to build 220 homes by that time, Pappas said. The company still has about 18 employees in the Newport Beach office and 38 other workers in the field.
Ken Agid, a real estate consultant in Irvine, said the New Jersey-based home-builder apparently thought it “would make a big splash and be right here in time for the recovery. It hasn’t happened.”
“Southern California was supposed to be moving at this point--the recovery has really been postponed,” he said.
Roland Osgood, president of Newport Beach’s office for Kaufman & Broad, the West’s largest home-builder, agreed that the local real estate market “isn’t great,” and said Hovnanian was probably just adjusting to the market.
Based in Red Bank, N.J., Hovnanian has major operations in Washington, D.C.; North Carolina; New Jersey, and Florida. It is known as a builder of entry-level homes.
* SLUMP CONTINUES
Orange County homes sales dropped for the ninth straight month. D6
