Note 4 - Segment Reporting

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2015

Segment Reporting [Abstract]

Segment Reporting Disclosure [Text Block]

4. Segment Reporting

We operate two principal businesses: homebuilding and financial services.

Our homebuilding operations acquire and develop land and construct and sell single-family attached and detached homes. In accordance with the aggregation criteria defined in ASC 280, our homebuilding operating segments have been grouped into four reportable segments: North, consisting of our operating divisions in Georgia, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington D.C.; Southeast, consisting of our operating divisions in Florida and the Carolinas; Southwest, consisting of our operating divisions in Texas, Colorado and Nevada; and West, consisting of our operating divisions in California and Arizona.             

Our mortgage financing operation provides mortgage financing to many of our homebuyers in substantially all of the markets in which we operate, and sells substantially all of the loans it originates in the secondary mortgage market. Our title services operation provides title examinations for our homebuyers in most of our operating divisions. Our mortgage financing and title services operations are included in our financial services reportable segment, which is separately reported in our consolidated financial statements under "Financial Services."

Corporate is a non-operating segment that develops and implements strategic initiatives and supports our operating segments by centralizing key administrative functions such as accounting, finance and treasury, information technology, insurance and risk management, litigation, marketing and human resources. Corporate also provides the necessary administrative functions to support us as a publicly traded company. All of the expenses incurred by Corporate are allocated to each of our operating divisions based on their respective percentage of revenues. 

Segment financial information relating to the Company’s homebuilding operations was as follows:

	Year Ended December 31,
	2015		2014		2013
	(Dollars in thousands)
Homebuilding revenues:
North	$	262,988	$	n/a	$	n/a
Southeast		988,773		672,776		496,070
Southwest		889,496		495,008		339,852
West		1,355,154		1,243,394		1,078,687
Total homebuilding revenues	$	3,496,411	$	2,411,178	$	1,914,609
Homebuilding pretax income:
North	$	5,556	$	n/a	$	n/a
Southeast		69,726		66,232		38,672
Southwest		70,851		48,958		33,119
West		179,417		224,931		174,478
Total homebuilding pretax income	$	325,550	$	340,121	$	246,269

Segment financial information relating to the Company’s homebuilding assets was as follows:

	December 31,
	2015		2014
	(Dollars in thousands)
Homebuilding assets:
North	$	732,689		n/a
Southeast		1,766,241		1,060,343
Southwest		1,470,654		624,765
West		2,357,597		1,744,308
Corporate (1)		1,594,175		494,920
Total homebuilding assets	$	7,921,356	$	3,924,336

(1) The assets in our Corporate Segment include cash and cash equivalents and our deferred tax asset and, for 2015, goodwill recorded in connection with the merger with Ryland. As of the end of the period covered by this annual report on Form 10-K, we have not yet finalized the allocation of goodwill to our reporting units.