Diane Bessette: If you look at the accounting rules under FAS 66 which speaks to sales of real estate, we have what is called continuing involvement, and what that means that it is a moment we have option agreement and right the first offer is on all the land and that is not in obligation, it truly as it stated it is an option or related first offer. What will happen is as we decide to exercise, we are not to exercise little the option, the land will then either come of our books, and we will have a sale or it will sale our books and will be building it out. It will be determined on an option-by-option basis and whether we choose to exercise that way or not.
Stephen East (Pali Capital): You wanted to get your balance sheet in a position to take advantage of opportunities that come along. When do you think the markets start presenting those opportunities in a meaningful way?
Stuart Miller: There is still time, there is still reconciliation. The homebuilding world has been ahead of the curve, the land world has been behind, and liquidity in the marketplace in general has stabilized. We are odd officially stabilized land pricing, relative to where it is still going to go and we still have some time before we start to see opportunity. We are not going to compromise our balance sheet today by chasing opportunities as the market is still trying to find the bottom. We are still driven by finding ways to take advantage of down market, as we are in right now, but we are not inclined to further trigger too soon.
Timothy Jones (Wasserman and Associates): Is Deloitte allowing you to take 2005, 2006, and 2007 for your three year base year and that have to take 2008 right now?
Stuart Miller: The literature of 109 discusses the fact that you need to look at whether it is more likely then not that you will be able to realize those benefits. As you look at that and evaluate it, it has been the company's conclusion and Deloitte's conclusion that in a cyclical business like ours, as we have looked at three years is a guideline. Based on the cyclicality of your industry and what you have experienced potentially you can end up with a different number then just three year. As we look forward, we would look to include 2008 based on the cyclicality, as we evaluate 109 going forward. We are looking at it over a four-year time period. Looking at one of the components although it is strong indicator with respect to whether or not you have a valuation reserve or not and that is accumulative loss. We look at that at as a four year period based on cyclicality that we have experienced in the industry.
Timothy Jones (Wasserman and Associates): How can you take the tax benefit from the IRS?
Stuart Miller: What we had a lot of focus on this year is taken what was a non-cash charge and as we have concluded transactions, converting inventory to cash, and you could see that from a large reduction in our inventory, we have concluded transactions that which time you realize that differ tax outset and it becomes an Income Tax receivable.
Bruce Gross: In many instances, we made an active decision to take what might have been impairment and then turn it into a realizable tax loss by concluding a sale transaction relative to the underlying asset. While the Morgan Stanley asset sale has received a lot of attention, there were a number of asset sales that may be more behind the scene that were part of creating the sale transaction, that resulted in the tax recovery.
Eric Landry (Morningstar): It appears that the big builders today are well prepared for whatever the market has to throw at them over next several quarters or even years whatever you have. Was this the case back in the late 80s early 90s?
Stuart Miller: No. There are some significant differences right now. First of all in prior downturn, the capitalization of most of the big homebuilders was in the 60%, 70%, 80% range going into the downturn. Most of the big builders in the current field started at the beginning of this downturn with debt-to-total cap ranges in the 30%, 40%, 50% range. The starting point was a better capitalization. Secondly, the capitalization in the prior downturns was always defined by short-term debt. In the current market, all of the big homebuilders are capitalized with longer term fixed rate debt as a base to their base business. Those two factors are significant shock absorbers for the homebuilders in this downturn and are creating a lot more stability. The lessons of the past have been heeded in a lot of ways. It does not mean that there have not been mistakes made, but the severity of this downturn has not yet proven fatal, and most of the builders are likely to be able to sustain themselves through that. |