Listening to all the homebuilder conference calls (including Toll Brothers yesterday), they are ALL saying that the markets which have clearly been "doing well" include the Washington DC/Virginia and Northern CA markets.....which happen to be the markets which comprise a pretty high percentage of Brookfield's housing sales (they only operate in 4 markets). Evidence also seems to clearly point to the San Diego market doing well with supply of homes down to only a few months. I don't think anyone is assuming (nor should anyone assume) that prices are going to shoot upwards....that being said, prices in these markets ARE going up (not down) and incentives are decreasing.
So why is BHS trading at around 75% of book value while the others are trading at 150%+ of book value? Basically, there's no good reason aside from the fact that there's no sell-side converage and some investors may not like the fact that Brookfield Asset Management owns 56% of the company, which is actually a big positive both because they're very smart, long-term investors and because they are a multibillion dollar company which will always be there for BHS if it needs capital. Of course, BHS's balance sheet is now in good shape and doesn't need any additional capital. Anyway, the point is that it is not uncommon to see such significant valuation discrepencies as can be seen with BHS. And these discrepencies ALWAYS resolve themselves with the passage of time so look for BHS to be a lot higher over the coming year.