Expansion helps Schuler
Homes double profits

The company continues growing
on the mainland with another purchase

Star-Bulletin staff

Helped by its booming mainland business while Hawaii sales remained soft, Schuler Homes Inc. doubled its third-quarter profit.

The company yesterday said it netted $3.6 million, or 18 cents a share, in the third quarter from $1.8 million, or 9 cents a share, in the 1997 quarter.

Schuler Homes also said it continued its mainland expansion with the purchase of a home builder in Portland, Ore., Keys Homes Inc., which had revenues of about $23.8 million in the last 12 months.

Keys sold 193 homes in the last 12 months and has a strong land position, with 733 lots under its control, said James K. Schuler, chairman, president and chief executive of Schuler Homes.

Schuler Homes started in Hawaii but in recent years has expanded to Colorado, Northern California, Oregon and Washington.

The company had third-quarter sales of $79.2 million, up 29.7 percent from $61.1 million. It has a backlog of 608 homes ordered but not delivered, worth $116 million, a 25.3 percent increase from a backlog of 517 homes, worth $92.7 million, at Sept. 30, 1997.

In addition to an overall sales increase from the year-earlier quarter, Schuler also improved the profit margins on the homes it sold. The company's operating profit in the latest quarter was $7.4 million, up 90 percent from $3.9 million in the 1997 quarter.

Schuler Homes now sells only 17 percent of its homes in Hawaii. During the latest quarter the company sold 82 of its own homes in Hawaii, plus seven in Hawaii joint-venture developments.

The company sold 303 homes in Colorado, 24 in Northern California and 20 in Oregon. And it sold another 74 homes in Washington state through a joint venture.

Its Hawaii backlog of sold homes is worth about $17 million while its mainland backlog is worth about $99 million.