While publicly traded homebuilders own more than 65% of new home subdivisions in Orlando, Las Vegas, Riverside, San Jose and Denver, the public builders are in the minority in many other markets. This is an interesting chart from the John Burns group. Note Seattle at 51% public builders.

Last week I was whining about Washington State’s lack of leadership in pushing through a construction defects bill, like Vancouver B.C. and now, possibly, Colorado. Jan Rohila from the Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW) just sent me a link showing that Senate Bill SB 5961 was introduced last year, but died. It appears to me that BIAW was the only sponsor of the bill.

My goodness! March was the second best March since the year 2000, only bested by the incredible year of 2005. The news release from the NWMLS stated that “Buyer anxiety is rising as the pace of home sales is faster than brokers are able to replenish inventory….” The big boom, of course, is King and Snohomish counties. “Listings are selling as soon as they come on the market for sale,” said J. Lennox Scott. John Deely of Coldwell Banker Bain said that buyers are flooding into the Greater Seattle market due to abundant job opportunities. Measured by months of supply, King County is at 1.3 months and Snohomish at just under 1.7 months, both well below equilibrium.