Builder giving away house at Eagles game

It's the fourth quarter, the clock is running, and your team needs to score big to stay in the playoffs.

It might be time for the "Hail Mary" pass, but in this case the team is not the Philadelphia Eagles but Pulte Homes Inc.'s Delaware Valley Division. It will give away a $300,000 home - or that amount toward the purchase of one of its more-expensive houses in one of its 17 communities - during the Browns vs. Birds game at Lincoln Financial Field on Dec. 15.

To win, all you need to do is throw a football through a model of a Pulte-built house set up on the field at halftime at the Monday night game. Three fans will be making the attempt, but only one can walk away a winner - not counting the Internal Revenue Service, which will receive lots of cash when the winner files a 2008 tax return.

More than 4,000 Eagles fans registered on the Eagles' Web site to be one of three picked at random to toss a regulation NFL football through a hole in the miniature of Pulte's Hampton model from 20 yards away, said Eric Ford, Pulte's regional land-acquisition manager.

The miniature was on view for three hours before most Eagles' home games in the preseason and regular season.

Eagles' senior vice president Mark Donovan said the contest was a way for the team to say "thank you to our fans."

The need for builders to do something isn't hard to understand. New-home sales in the region were down 41.5 percent from the same period in 2007, and unsold inventory is hovering at 28,000 units - singles, townhouses and condos.

The fourth quarter of this troubled year is not looking promising, as credit remains tight and unemployment rises. In fact, Gopal Ahluwahlia, vice president of research for the National Association of Homebuilders in Washington, yesterday described the new-home market everywhere as "close to dead."

Still, stock prices for home builders were boosted yesterday after reports that mortgage applications surged as rates fell in the aftermath of last week's Federal Reserve decision to buy $600 billion in Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac debt and mortgage-backed securities and that California's huge backlog of unsold homes had dropped dramatically.

For example, Pulte, based in Bloomfield, Mich., gained $1.32, or 13.44 percent, to $11.14 in trading yesterday.