Developing new options

To minimize their risk in the current market downturn, Bay State builders are scaling back projects and giving buyers more choices

In the current market, new homes under construction are getting more distinct designs to help them stand out, such as the Five Lanterns subdivision in Plymouth. (Globe Staff / Jonathan Wiggs)

When business was booming, buyers shopping for new homes built by Symes Development LLC might have had only one finish available for elements such as kitchen counters.

Today, you can pick your own counter type and Symes will build to suit.

"We're making sure it's very consumer-driven," said Jeffrey Rhuda of Symes, which is building single-family home projects in Burlington and Wakefield and condominiums in Brentwood, N.H., and Kennebunkport, Maine.

"We want this inventory to move," he said.

With the broader real estate market mired in a slump and the spring construction season approaching, home builders large and small are eyeing ways to keep building and bringing customers through those new front doors.

For home-shoppers, this can mean more choices of home styles, interior layouts, finishes, and other features. You're now more likely to find offerings touting energy efficiency and environmentally conscious components.

"With fewer customers out there, builders don't want to lose any of them," said Mark Leff, president of the Massachusetts Home Builders Association and vice president of construction for Salem Savings Bank. "I think the builders who are doing the best are the ones that focus on the marketing process."

Perhaps most important, buyers may find builders willing to make better deals on prices than owners of existing homes, many of whom have barely budged in the last year.

Builder Len Gengel has trimmed the size of some of the smallest homes in the next phase of his Highlands at Brunelle West subdivision, in the Central Massachusetts town of Rutland, to bring them in under $300,000 and closer to the median prices of homes in the community.

"We are targeting the first-time buyers," Gengel said. "We've adapted to the market."

Some builders, however, have limited options for cutting prices. Most already have paid for the land, and construction costs, under pressure from rising energy prices, probably are not going down. In a some cases, then, builders may simply not proceed with construction at all. Rhuda said one approach is to sell land where construction no longer makes economic sense, and buy it where conditions are more favorable.

"We've terminated some agreements and renegotiated some, and we're buying some land at reduced prices," Rhuda said.

Certainly the housing slowdown has caused many home builders to stop building, meaning those buyers in the market for a new home may have fewer to choose from. Last year in Massachusetts, about 14,800 permits for new homes were issued, down from 24,000 two years earlier, according to the home builders association. While home prices fell a scant 1.5 percent last year, according to Warren Group, the number of single-family homes sold in 2007 fell by a whopping 12.6 percent from the previous year.

Meanwhile, buyers who were awaiting construction at a favored site might have to wait, as some builders are slowing the pace of construction. "It's a matter of cutting your losses and minimizing your risk," said Charles P. Magri, owner of a home inspection and construction firm in Norton. "We don't see housing coming out of the doldrums in the next several months."

Builders who normally chafe at delays in permitting now sometimes welcome an enforced pause. Alan Berry of C.P. Berry Homes in Topsfield said he does not expect to get permits for a 52-unit condominium project in Topsfield before fall.

"If we were ready to go right now, I don't know if this would be a good time to jump in," he said.

The new homes that are getting built, however, may look more distinct, more singular as builders try to make their properties stand out in a low period.

For example, the Green Co. is transplanting a West Coast idea - indoor-outdoor living - to its new 25-home Five Lanterns subdivision in the Pinehills development, a community taking shape on a 3,000-acre tract in Plymouth.

The homes will have octagonal living rooms with screened-in sides, summer kitchens that open into private enclosed courtyards, sleeping porches, and koi ponds. Now under construction, the homes at Five Lanterns will start at $1 million.

"A lot of people are trying different things to see what works," said Green Co. president Daniel Green.

The company will roll out the new homes gradually. The first model is scheduled to be finished in June, followed by a second later in the summer.

"One piece of our strategy is to have a number of homes at different stages of construction," Green added. "With this marketplace, everyone is waiting to sell their house before buying. You don't have as many buyers now, but when they do buy, they want to move in right away."

High-end second homes tend to be faring better in this housing downturn, which has battered the middle and lower ends of the market.

At the New Seabury golf course community on Cape Cod, where new single-family home prices range from $1 million to $2.5 million, construction is proceeding at a brisk pace, said Daniel Buckley, project manager for Bayswater Development at New Seabury.

Buckley said construction is underway on a 28-home single-family subdivision at New Seabury, as well as a 25-condominium project.

He said the buyers are attracted to the golf courses and the beaches, and tend not to have credit problems.

"We're fortunate. We're in this bubble down here," Buckley said.

Robert Preer can be reached at preer@globe.com.