Interstate General to shift focus from home building
Like many real estate company executives, James J. Wilson, president and chief executive of Interstate General Co. L.P. in St. Charles, Md., worries about interest rates and federal policies that affect consumer demand for the homes his company builds and the lots it sells.</br></br>Wilson fretted so much about the federal budget deficit last year that he voted for Ross Perot, he said, even though he didn't want the Texan to win. "You have to know what's going on at all levels [of government]. It's going to come back and affect you," Wilson said.</br></br>He almost learned that lesson the hard way. Since going public in February 1987, the company Wilson founded in 1957 had posted a healthy string of profits until the fourth quarter of 1990, when it lost $473,000.</br></br>The last two years were difficult. The worst came in the second quarter of 1992, when the company lost $16.2 million. Interstate General would have filed for bankruptcy, like many other developers, except for its racetrack and off-track-betting operation in Puerto Rico, and the revenue it made on the 8,000 apartment units it owns, Wilson said.</br></br>Total revenue also declined, from a high of $64.4 million in 1990 to $41 million last year. Now, as quarterly profits are returning to the black ($2.3 million in the first quarter of the year), Wilson said he has decided to shift Interstate General's focus from home building and land development because they are so dependent on government actions.