KB Home shares slid 51 cents

KB Home shares slid 51 cents, or 4.2%, to $11.69, their seventh straight decline.

Home builders are facing strong head winds in 2011. New-home sales in the U.S. hit a record low in February, adding to concern that any recovery in the housing market is still a long way off.

Cash-rich investors and other buyers have increased their presence in the market in recent months, and they are mostly focused on foreclosures and other so-called distressed homes, where the borrowers on the properties are having trouble paying their mortgages.

Demand from the more everyday buyer — those who buy a home to live in — has become scarce since tax credits expired last year. KB Home and other builders have been trying to lure potential buyers away from the resale market and into their new properties by offering smaller, more affordable models and rolling out more modern, energy-efficient designs.
Brent crude oil eased from a two-and-a-half year high struck amid war in Libya and unrest in the Middle East and gold sat just below a record scaled in the previous session.