Inventories

Inventories consisted of the following (in thousands):



	November 30,
	2015		2014
Homes under construction	$	1,031,356	$	928,272
Land under development	1,766,045		1,710,149
Land held for future development	516,346		579,966
Total	$	3,313,747	$	3,218,387

Homes under construction is comprised of costs associated with homes in various stages of construction and includes direct construction and related land acquisition and land development costs. Land under development primarily consists of land acquisition and land development costs. Land development costs also include capitalized interest and real estate taxes. When home construction begins, the associated land acquisition and land development costs are included in homes under construction. Land held for future development principally reflects land acquisition and land development costs related to land where development activity has been suspended or has not yet begun but is expected to occur in the future. These assets held for future development are located in various submarkets where conditions do not presently support further investment or development, or are subject to a building permit moratorium or regulatory restrictions, or are portions of larger land parcels that we plan to build out over several years and/or that have not yet been entitled. We may also suspend development activity if we believe it will result in greater returns and/or maximize the economic performance of a particular community by delaying improvements for a period of time to, for instance, allow earlier phases of a long-term, multi-phase community or a neighboring community to generate sales momentum or for market conditions to improve. In some instances, we may activate or resume development activity for this inventory to accelerate sales and/or our return on investment. We have activated assets previously held for future development in certain markets as part of our strategic growth initiatives. Interest and real estate taxes are not capitalized on land held for future development.

Our interest costs were as follows (in thousands):



	Years Ended November 30,
	2015			2014			2013
Capitalized interest at beginning of year	$	266,668		$	216,681		$	217,684
Interest incurred (a)	186,885			171,541			149,101
Interest expensed (a)	(21,856		)	(30,750		)	(62,690		)
Interest amortized to construction and land costs (b)	(143,255		)	(90,804		)	(87,414		)
Capitalized interest at end of year (c)	$	288,442		$	266,668		$	216,681


(a)	Amounts for the year ended November 30, 2013 included losses on the early extinguishment of debt of $10.4 million associated with the purchase and retirement of certain senior notes ahead of their maturity.


(b)	Interest amortized to construction and land costs for the year ended November 30, 2015 included $16.4 million related to land sales during the period.


(c)	Capitalized interest amounts presented in the table reflect the gross amount of capitalized interest, as inventory impairment charges recognized, if any, are not generally allocated to specific components of inventory.