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The home building sector's star has finally dimmed.

NVR Inc. (NVR), which has long outshone its peers by shunning land ownership, said it swung to a quarterly loss, another blow for a battered sector limping through a prolonged downturn that shows few signs of easing.

On Thursday, the U.S. government said new home sales plunged in December, capping the worst year for sales since 1982, while two other large builders, Meritage Homes Corp. (MTH) and Ryland Group Inc. (RYL), detailed losses reported late Wednesday. The barrage of negative headlines battered builder stocks. NVR fell nearly 8%, compared with a 7.69% loss for the Dow Jones US Home Construction Index.

Meritage plunged 14.46%, easily making it the sector's biggest loser. After gaining in early trading, Ryland were slightly lower in afternoon trading.

Before the market opened Thursday, Reston, Va.-based NVR said it lost $30.46 million, or $5.54 a share, for the quarter ended Dec. 31, compared with net income of $67.27 million, or $11.72 a share, a year earlier.

The company, which took about $121 million in asset impairment charges, also said that as of Feb. 4, Dwight C. Schar, the executive chairman, will relinquish the executive officer title but remain chairman of the board.

The loss is the company's first of the downturn, said Alex Barron, Agency Trading Group's building analyst. He said he doesn't expect future large impairments because of the lack of land ownership and just $29 million of options remaining on the books.

"I don't think anybody was expecting" the loss, Barron said, adding that without the charge, the company would have made money. "What this write-off means is they don't believe that a lot of the land options that they had contracted would be profitable if they would go ahead and build those houses."

Exercising those options would mean building at a loss, Barron pointed out. The question is: What now?

"That's where it becomes a little bit interesting," he said.

The notoriously guarded company - which went bankrupt in the last residential downturn and avoids conference calls - said the quarter's new orders decreased 30%. The cancellation rate was also 30%, dipping from 32% a year earlier, some of the lowest rates to come from builders recently.

"Relative to the rest of the industry, they still look like they're outperforming," said Robert Curran, Fitch Rating's lead home-building analyst.

After emerging from bankruptcy in the early 90s, NVR rebuilt itself by securing land with a small down payment, or option, and buying only when ready to build. Unlike other builders, it wasn't stuck with overpriced land and inventory when the housing bubble popped. Other builders are mimicking the model, although that could mean lower returns should land values appreciate. The sector has been stung by impairments, which now top $26 billion.

Meritage and Ryland's quarterly numbers boosted that total - more than $100 million added from Meritage alone - but their losses weren't as grim. They each narrowed their fourth-quarter losses.

Even so, Meritage didn't sugar-coat the quarter's pain.

"Economic conditions in the fourth quarter of 2008 were the worst we've experienced to date," said Steven J. Hilton, Meritage's chairman and chief executive. "The reverberations from the financial crisis that began in September 2008 impacted all of our markets, and we experienced a substantial decrease in traffic and sales."

Arizona-based Meritage posted its seventh consecutive quarter of red ink, with a net loss of $79.1 million, or $2.58 a share, compared with $128.8 million, or $4.91 a share, a year earlier.

It took impairments of $110 million, with $44 million in California. Texas came next, followed by Arizona and Florida.

Closing revenue fell 35% to $399.6 million, while net orders plunged 52%. Closings took a 30% hit, while the average selling price fell about 10% to $259,800. During the 2006 heyday of the housing market, the average closing price topped $330,000, according to JPMorgan.

The most recent cancellation rate was 56%, showing many customers decided not to buy.

Analysts have long been fans of Meritage because, like NVR, it favors options. But they're concerned about Meritage's strategy of depending on Texas to survive the downturn. The Lone Star State, which accounted for 52% of last year's revenue, saw orders crumble 61%. Half of its lots are in are in the state, compared with 36% in Arizona and 6% in Nevada, executives said in the earnings conference call.

"The significant weakness in Texas is troublesome," noted Credit Suisse's Dan Oppenheim.

Hilton said the company was responding, and it remains confident in what remains its strongest region because of population and employment growth and housing affordability.

"We were swift in taking aggressive actions in Texas as our net sales there fell during the quarter," he said. "We closed certain communities, sold some assets and consolidated operations in the region. We'll continue to be cautious until we are more comfortable with the activity in our Texas region."

Meritage is redesigning its product to help compete with bargain-priced foreclosures nationwide. Cycle times have been reduced by 31 days, meaning faster inventory turnover, a longer selling season and lower interest cost, the company said.

California-based Ryland, meanwhile, reported a net loss of $59.9 million, or $1.40 a share, compared with a year-ago loss of $201.9 million, or $4.80 a share.

Asset impairment charges came in at $55 million, a number JP Morgan's Michael Rehaut expects "will rise solidly over at least the next one to two quarters as the company more aggressively adjusts to the marketplace and lowers price."

Closings slid 36% to 1,964, while cancellations as a percent of sales hit 55%. Revenue tumbled 39% to $528.2 million, while orders dropped 65%.

New orders were "well below" Fox-Pitt Kelton's expectations. "We wonder how much of this decline is due solely to the current housing market and how much of this decline was driven by RYL management," noted analyst Rob Stevenson. "In our view, RYL's cash and net debt-to-total capital position should marginally reduce the pressure to build and sell homes at negative margins just to maintain liquidity."

The average home price dropped 8.6% to $246,000. That's down from nearly $300,000 during the boom, according to JP Morgan.

To jump-start business in time for the spring selling season, builders are unveiling eye-catching specials. Last week, luxury builder Toll Brothers Inc. (TOL) surprised the industry when it lowered the rate of its 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage to 3.99%. Industry giant Lennar Corp. (LEN) beat that with 3.875% in some markets.

Ryland offers 3.99% in some areas, executives said in Thursday's midday earnings call.

Hovnanian Enterprises (HOV) is working on a program that would pay mortgages for some unemployed homeowners. Pulte Homes (PHM), meanwhile, will make payments until 2010 for qualified buyers in some markets.

Home builders have strongly lobbied Congress to expand on a $7,500 temporary tax credit for first-time home buyers, making it available to all home buyers and eliminating a requirement to pay the credit back over time.

But Hilton said he's not counting on that: "We fully expect 2009 will be another challenging year, and are not hanging our hopes on 'rescue packages' that are out of our control."

-By Dawn Wotapka, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5248; dawn.wotapka@dowjones.com

(John Kell contributed to this report.)

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