Kaufman and Broad executive moves on after building LV market

Brian Seals

Friday, Dec. 4, 1998 | 11:57 a.m.

When Jay Moss came to Las Vegas in 1993 he had the task of establishing a foothold in the Las Vegas housing market for Los Angeles-based Kaufman and Broad Home Corp.

The company sold 216 homes that first year. Five years later, as Moss prepares to leave Las Vegas, the homebuilder will deliver 1,000 new homes in Southern Nevada for 1998.

Moss is leaving for Northern California at the request of Kaufman and Broad Chairman Bruce Karatz in hopes of replicating the company's Las Vegas success. The company recently announced a merger with Upland, Calif.-based Lewis Homes, forming the largest homebuilder in the country.

Kaufman and Broad paid $409 million in cash and stock and assumed about $135 million in debt.

Moss called the move to California a promotion.

"When the chairman of the board asks you to do something like this ... you do it," Moss said in a recent interview.

Robert Lewis, president of Lewis Homes of Nevada, will head the Nevada division of the merged company. Moss is taking two executives with him to California -- Bill June, vice president of operations, and Leslie Erbland, vice president of sales and marketing. Those positions will be filled by Kaufman and Broad executives, Moss said.

Though Moss moved here in 1993, his link to Las Vegas was firmly rooted long before then. During the 1980s, he worked on the Green Valley master-planned community. He was a marketing consultant for the Summerlin master-planned community in the early 1990s, and began acquiring property for Kaufman and Broad in 1992 before going on to head the company's entry into Southern Nevada.

Moss says he has accomplished the goal of injecting the company's philosophy into the Las Vegas housing market, namely offering customer choice to entry-level buyers. When he came to the Valley, he said most houses fell into the Spanish/Mediterranean, red-tiled roof motif.

"By coming here, we felt we could bring our expertise and designs to the Las Vegas market," Moss said. "We introduced the front porch concept into the Las Vegas market for affordable housing. We didn't think it all had to be Mediterranean or Spanish. After that, we found we had several competitors copying our style."

The desires of home buyers are ever-changing. As the desires of home buyers change, the company has a marketing approach in place to respond to those desires dubbed KB 2000, which allows buyers a choice of amenities.

"I put fireplaces in the first 2,000 homes I built," Moss said. "Now that I offer fireplaces as an option, about 10 percent of the people take them. I built all kinds of fireplaces that people didn't consider that important."

The company's marketing program allows buyers to choose counter tops, vaulted ceilings or even additional space, for example. The company offers "bonus rooms" that allow an additional 400 square feet for $12,000, something Moss calls a "steal."

"I think we react to changing tastes on a continuing basis," Moss said.

That philosophy combined with the strengths of each company should enable the combined company to sell close to 3,000 houses a year, Moss said. The merged companies complement each other in price range and geography. Kaufman and Broad brings a strong presence in Northwest Las Vegas while Lewis brings an emphasis on the southwestern segment of the Valley.

Also, Kaufman and Broad will combine its entry-level priced houses with Lewis' high-end product.

"I think that any home buyer looking from $90,000 to $250,000 is going to have to look at either Kaufman and Broad or Lewis in one form or another," Moss said.

The latest quarterly report by Irvine, Calif.-based The Meyers Group shows that Kaufman and Broad has 15 subdivisions in the area ranging in price from $96,000 to $154,000. The report shows Lewis as having 35 subdivisions in the Valley ranging in price from $96,000 to $224,000.

The merged company's fortunes should be bolstered by what Moss sees as a continued healthy environment for home sales in the Valley for 1999. He said new hotel openings and low interest rates should continue the Valley's flourishing housing market of recent years.

He also said public policy is generally favorable to home builders. Volume has slowed the permitting process and hook-up fees have increased. But he said local governments have not placed all the burden of accommodating growth on the backs of homebuilders, pointing to this year's successful referendums on a sales tax increase for water systems and a sales tax freeze to raise money for schools. Those initiatives will play a part in keeping a lid on house prices.

"That helps spread the cost to everybody," Moss said. "You can't levy the costs of growth on one industry."