Dive summary:

• Surviving the recession is proving to be easier than surviving the recovery for some private builders who are selling out to publicly traded firms because the big players can get cash to meet the market while the smaller companies are being stalled by banks that remain nervous about any kind of real estate lending.
• The big companies like Lennar, Toll Brothers and Standard Pacific are among the companies that are taking part in both the home-buying and builder-buying markets, grabbing eight companies for a total of $1.5 billion in the past 18 months.
• The FDIC says the dollar value of outstanding construction and development loans has declined 68% since the peak of the market in early 2008, illustrating how tight smaller companies find things while the big builders issued $8.1 billion in bonds last year to raise working capital.

From the article:

"It's getting tougher and tougher for the little guy," said Michael P. Kahn, a building-industry consultant based in Palm Coast, Fla. ...