FALLBROOK: KB Home subdivision to feature smaller floor plans

By: TOM PFINGSTEN - Staff Writer | Tuesday, March 25, 2008 2:31 PM PDT ∞

FALLBROOK ---- Planners said Tuesday that the housing downturn has prompted them to scale back plans for a subdivision off Stage Coach Lane, where most of the spacious floor plans originally priced upward of $700,000 had failed to sell.

Officials with KB Home said they plan to shrink the size of the homes they are trying to sell at "Shady Grove," the proposed 101-home development at Stage Coach and Gum Tree Lane.

The company apparently does not plan to reduce the number of homes in Shady Grove.

To date, only a handful of houses in the subdivision have been built, along with a small park and residential streets throughout the neighborhood.

Eileen Delaney, a member of the Fallbrook Planning Group, said that a KB Home planner attended the group's last meeting on March 17 to solicit comment on the idea of shrinking the floor plans.

"They figure it would be a better thing if they had smaller homes ---- that they'd be able to market them better," Delaney recalled.

From a planning perspective, the smaller homes would fit better on the lots because there would be more room between the houses, she said.

Delaney said only eight homes out of the proposed 101 homes have been sold.

"We were a little concerned about how those who had already had homes there would fit in, but they're in a different area," she said of those who purchased the larger floor plans.

Some homes at Shady Grove were originally listed at more than $800,000, but the housing market slump has taken its toll. On Tuesday, the largest home at Shady Grove was listed at 3,400 square feet and $676,000.

KB Home, which specializes in built-to-order houses, built 23,743 homes nationwide in 2007 and earned $6.4 billion in revenue, according to company figures.

But year-over-year figures released in a January report show the company has been hit hard by the housing market downturn: In the fiscal quarter that ended in November, the builder reported $2.07 billion in revenue, down from $3.01 billion during the same period in 2006.

The report also said the average price of one of KB Home's dwellings decreased to $248,000 in 2007 from $280,000 in 2006 ---- a decline of 12 percent.

Still, the company seems committed to building the rest of its Fallbrook subdivision, which it has been pursuing for about five years.

KB Home paid for two months' worth of road work on Stage Coach and Gum Tree last summer, raising the intersection eight feet and widening both roads.

It was unclear whether the county would need to sign off on the smaller floor plans in order for the company to start marketing them, but a KB Home spokeswoman said that is usually the case.

"Typically, whenever we do any floor plan changing, we have to get approval ---- either from the city or the county," Lindsay Stephenson said Tuesday morning. "Someone's going to have to approve it."

Contact staff writer Tom Pfingsten at (760) 740-3516 or tpfingsten@nctimes.com.

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