Thank you. I appreciate it.
Operator
Our next question is coming from Josh Levin of Citi. Your line is open.
Josh Levin - Citigroup
Good morning, everybody. I wanted to ask about the timing of your equity issuance. Given the significant cash balance and the fact that your stock sells at a steep discount to book, why did you decide to issue equity this quarter as opposed to waiting until some point in the future, you have until 2011.
Stuart A. Miller
Josh, we view our balance sheet is kind of from two directions. Number one, we think it’s important to have a good, solid balance sheet that’s positioned to be stable but we also think it is really important in times like these to have an adequate what we feel is a buffer.
As I said in my opening remarks I see reason for some cautious optimism but there are still significant headwinds out there that define a lot of downside risk. To me, I don’t want to raise capital the last minute that I need it. I want to be ahead of the curve. I want to have a buffer because I am not willing to say that we have gotten past this storm and so I want to make sure that we have not only adequate capital to sustain ourselves through this market condition but I want to make sure that we have adequate capital to sustain and to grow as the market ultimately stabilizes.
So, I feel that I want to be three steps ahead of where I need to be. So we did get out there and raise additional capital through equity offering as well as debt and we are going to leave the options open to continue to do the same.
Josh Levin – Citigroup
Okay, one follow up question. Again about the stock valuation. When you obviously trade to the steep discount to book and also your peers, as CEO and a large shareholder, how do you think about the valuation gap? Is it something that you think about often? Is it something that can be addressed in the near term or just takes time, basically go away in time?
Stuart A. Miller
I realize Josh that I am talking to investors and analysts and I want to do that respectfully. I think a lot more about the day-to-day operations than getting out into the field and making sure that our operations are carefully adjusted to the current market condition and that we are getting to profitability. I think at the end of the day, as we perform the way that I would like to see us performing and the way that we will be performing. I think that the market will take care of itself. I think that most people know that I personally have spent the bulk of my time focusing on the operations as opposed to worrying too much about the stock price and that’s where you are going to see a lot of my time continue to be spent in the field working with the divisions to get to profitability.
Josh Levin – Citigroup
Okay. Thank you very much.
Operator
Our next question is coming from Michael Rehaut of JPMorgan. Your line is open.
Michael Rehaut - JPMorgan
Hi, thanks. Good morning, everyone. First question just on the level of impairments, if we go back over the last couple of years you guys obviously had a couple of very large impairment quarters in the third and fourth quarter of ’07, punctuated by (inaudible) with the big transaction you did but over the last six quarters much more muted and if you compare to many of your other peers over the last six quarters there have been larger impairments and typically what has been driving that from their perspective has been that you had a declining home price environment and you have actually had to re-impair many communities and sometimes that’s caught up in a much larger sense. So I was wondering if you could kind of comment on that and if there are different methodologies that you are using and why hasn’t the continued steady decline in home prices resulted in larger charges over the last six quarters.
Bruce E. Gross
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