Homebuilder calls it quits

RIO RANCHO, N.M. (KRQE) - Wallen Home, once one of metro Albuquerque's larger homebuilders, is abruptly pulling up stakes blaming its fall on the bad economy and tight credit.

The numbers showed a business that has fallen almost 90 percent in four years.

In 2005, Wallen built 219 upscale houses in and around Albuquerque. Last year the company built just 22.

"They're building in the wrong price range and in the wrong size range at the wrong time," David Murphy of RealtyTraq New Mexico told KRQE News 13.

Murphy said the average price of a Wallen home in the area is $285,000, right in the middle of the worst sector of a weak real estate market.

"People are downsizing," Murphy added. "They're looking for a smaller home.

"They're looking for a smaller payment, and a smaller home costs less to heat and cool and insure and maintain."

Wallen owner Eric Wallace told News 13 from Pittsburgh that the upscale homebuilding market is in a "depression, not a recession" in Albuquerque and around the nation.

He said he hopes another builder will buy the assets of Wallen Homes including more than 100 empty lots and several unsold homes. Some of that money would go to refund deposits from buyers whose homes haven't been built.

However he acknowledged in the current economy it will be a tough sell.