Lennar To Boost Community Count With The Opening Of The Ellis

LMC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lennar Corporation (NYSE:LEN) , is all set to open a new luxury apartment community, The Ellis, in Uptown Charlotte, NC. The community is expected to be completed by the end of 2020.

LMC, in conjunction with Hoar Construction, will develop 549 apartment homes within a mid-rise and high-rise building along with 19,654 square feet of retail space. Of the total, mid-rise building will have 184 homes and high-rise building will have 365 homes, including 23 luxury penthouse layouts.

The Ellis will be situated in 512 North College Street, which is a commuter-friendly location and is easily accessible to the 9th Street Station of the Charlotte light rail and Charlotte Rail Trail. Notably, these luxury apartments will be laced with exclusive interiors, smart-home technologies and various amenities.

This Miami, FL-based notable homebuilding company offers a diversified line of homes for first-time, move-up and active adult homebuyers. The company keeps on upgrading homes to cater to changing consumer requirements.




Meanwhile, shares of Lennar have gained 15.7%, outperforming its industry’s rally of 12.9% in the past three months. The outperformance was backed by an impressive earnings surprise history, having surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in 12 of the trailing 13 quarters. In fact, the company’s adjusted earnings of $1.96 per share in fourth-quarter fiscal 2018 topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.93 by 1.6%.

However, its fiscal fourth-quarter revenues of $6.46 billion missed the consensus mark of $6.53 billion due to housing market headwinds like rising mortgage rates and higher home prices. Rising land and labor costs are threatening margins as they limit homebuilders’ pricing power. Rising construction material prices have been putting up hurdles for homebuilders. The company’s adjusted gross margin on home sales decreased 30 basis points year over year to 21.8% in fiscal 2018.

Nonetheless, management believes that underlying fundamentals of lower unemployment, higher wages and low inventory levels remain conducive to the industry.

Zacks Rank & Key Picks

Currently, Lennar carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell). Some better-ranked stocks in the Zacks Construction sector are Loma Negra Compania Industrial Argentina Sociedad Anonima (NYSE:LOMA) , Altair Engineering Inc. (NASDAQ:ALTR) and EMCOR Group, Inc. (NYSE:EME) , each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Loma Negra, Altair Engineering and EMCOR’s 2019 earnings are expected to grow 44.6%, 58.6% and 6.9%, respectively.

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