Inventories

12 Months Ended

Nov. 30, 2019

Inventories consisted of the following (in thousands):



	November 30,
	2019		2018
Homes completed or under construction	$	1,340,412	$	1,125,152
Land under development	2,213,713		2,219,936
Land held for future development or sale (a)	150,477		237,751
Total	$	3,704,602	$	3,582,839


(a)	Land held for sale totaled $19.3 million at November 30, 2019 and $9.8 million at November 30, 2018.

Homes completed or under construction is comprised of costs associated with homes completed or 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 completed or 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 or extend sales momentum, or for market conditions to improve. In some instances, we may activate or resume development activity for such inventory to accelerate sales and/or our return on investment. We activated assets previously held for future development in certain markets in 2019, 2018 and 2017 as part of our Returns-Focused Growth Plan.

Land is generally considered held for sale when management commits to a plan to sell the land; the land is available for immediate sale in its present condition; an active program to locate a buyer and other actions required to complete the plan to sell have been initiated; the sale of the land is expected to be completed within one year; the land is being actively marketed for sale at a price that is reasonable in relation to its current fair value; and it is unlikely that the plan to sell will be withdrawn or that significant changes to the plan will be made. Interest and real estate taxes are not capitalized on land held for future development or sale.

During 2019 and 2018, we changed our strategy related to certain land parcels located in improving housing markets where we determined the incremental investment in development to be justified and decided to build and sell homes on these parcels. Such land parcels were classified as either land under development or land held for future development (in the case of later phases of a long-term, multi-phase community) as of November 30, 2019 and 2018. Land held for sale as of November 30, 2019 and 2018 consisted of land parcels that either have been contracted to sell or that we are continuing to actively market and/or intend to sell within one year.

Our interest costs were as follows (in thousands):



	Years Ended November 30,
	2019			2018			2017
Capitalized interest at beginning of year	$	209,129		$	262,191		$	306,723
Interest incurred	143,412			149,698			171,486
Interest expensed	—			—			(622		)
Interest amortized to construction and land costs (a)	(156,803		)	(202,760		)	(215,396		)
Capitalized interest at end of year (b)	$	195,738		$	209,129		$	262,191


(a)	Interest amortized to construction and land costs for the years ended November 30, 2019, 2018 and 2017 included $.7 million $4.8 million and $4.9 million, respectively, related to land sales during the periods.

(b)

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