By Staff Report Wednesday, April 25th, 2012

National homebuilder Ryland Group narrowed its first-quarter loss to $3 million from $17.4 milllion as orders for new homes jumped 46.6 percent.

Ryland’s revenue climbed 28.7 percent year-over-year to $215.9 million as home orders and closings rose in tandem with average closing prices. The company, which last year moved its headquarters to Westlake Village, said it had new-home orders for 1,328 units in the most recent quarter, up from 907 in the same quarter a year earlier.

Closings of new homes sales were up 25.4 percent to 815 units, it said, and its average closing price increased to $256,000 from $248,000.

Ryland, which built as many as 16,000 homes per year at the peaking of the housing boom, is a much smaller company today, although it remains one of the largest homebuilders in the U.S. Most of Ryland’s homebuilding occurs in Baltimore, Chicago, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Northern Virginia, Washington, D.C., central Texas, the southeast U.S. and California’s Inland empire, according to regulatory filings.
Since the housing market collapse in 2007, the company has not turned a profit.

It has, however, managed to narrow its losses in recent quarters. In an interview with the Business Times last year, Ryland Vice President for Investor Relations Drew Mackintosh said the company is “getting closer each quarter to finding that right level of cost structure” and returning to profitability.