In a monthly analysis on home builders that focuses on what it's going to take to work through new-home inventory, including 166,000 spec completions Zelman & Associates' CEO Ivy Zelman writes this:

As builders are burdened with significant carry costs associated with finished spec inventory, there are few options other than selling the home for a loss to generate cash in this weak environment. For private builders with project-specific financing, this could require the builder to cover the difference between the home selling price and the balance remaining on the debt.

Specs on average remain unsold for 9-plus months, the most time on the market in 40 years, and almost double their normal time as a ready-to-occupy home. Public builders can take impairments and still come up either flat or even cash-flow positive, while privates get saddled with the whole loss because there's no public equity they can simply write down. [Have a look at Big Builder contributor Jamie Pirrello's analysis on how differently declining new-home prices affect public versus private home builders].

Cash has been and will be critical. Your decision--precisely as the global credit crunch puts even the biggest and most robust companies under duress to obtain ongoing working capital to run their businesses-- whether to and how to "cover the difference" has to be one of the more agonizing exercises you can go through. But if ever there were a time to batten down the hatches and exit as many leveraged LLCs as possible, it's now. Sell like there's no tomorrow so that you'll have one.

To find, qualify, and close buyers at almost every price point, your talent will have to be more skilled than they've been in 40 years as the conditions are worse than they've been in at least that long.

Who can doubt that, for all the noise the gargantuan financial rescue package generates, it will be a free-enterprise market that will do the work of getting the economy going again? It'll fall to your companies.

Home building executives and operators, from the headquarters to the divisional offices to each and every community outpost, all have had an experience that's unlike any other in any business: Seeing a family take ownership of a new home. Seeing a neighborhood take shape. Watching a community come alive and thrive for years and decades to come. With each family you put in a new home, you create value that goes beyond a monetary price tag. With each neighborhood you help populate, you create value to society that goes beyond tax rolls and economic equation.

You, quite literally, build value. You build a way of life. You build tomorrows.

Mark that to fair value in the market, apply FASB, and send it to the SEC.

It's time to focus--during this challenging slowdown--on the specifics and the details of what you can do to make more value for the families you put in homes; to make more value for your managers and teams of associates; to make more value for your shareholders, investors, lenders; to make more value for America as it weathers the next tough stretch.