"When you look at this as a composite, it looks like a good deal," observes Jack McCabe, president of Deerfield Beach-based McCabe Research & Consulting LLC. However, he warns that land banking can be risky now considering that other homebuilders have gotten overleveraged in Florida, which could lead to even more lots coming to market.

Lennar has a contract to buy 243 home sites in South Miami-Dade in a partially built community, according to Miami-Dade County property records. The seller of the home sites at The Enclave at Blackpoint Marina in Cutler Bay, VHF-Enclave, confirmed the deal set to close in March. VHF-Enclave executive Arnaud Karsenti declined further comment.

During the last quarter of 2009, Lennar bought 750 home sites for more than $13 million in partially finished communities in Homestead. Lennar was one of the most active developers in Miami-Dade during the housing boom, when home sale prices rose almost daily and home loans were easy to get.

But when the housing market collapsed, the builder was stuck with hundreds of unsold homes and condos in several new communities. To survive the housing and economic downturn, Lennar began cutting expenses in 2007 and selling undeveloped land to raise capital.

Their strategy was to hoard the cash to be able to buy distressed real estate in one of the nation's worst economic recessions in more than half a century. It currently has $1.3 billion in cash and seems eager to spend it.

Through a subsidiary, Lennar dropped $243 million in cash to acquire a 40% managing interest in a limited liability that held nearly 5,500 distressed residential and commercial loans from 22 failed banks. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. owns the remaining 60% of the loans, which total just over $3 billion. Most of the collateral consists of partially developed land, residential units and finished homes primarily in Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona, according to Lennar.

Lennar's Rialto Capital Advisors will conduct the day-to-day management, including doing loan workouts and foreclosures. The builder plans to achieve at least a $122-million profit on the loan deal.

Lennar gained experience buying and disposing of distressed loans during the savings and loan crisis in the early 1990s. Whether it can strike again with current market conditions is questionable: "This situation is so much worse than any of us has ever seen in our lifetimes," McCabe says.

Taft, meanwhile, terms Lennar's strategy as brilliant. "In addition to buying lots, he says, it has gone back to its roots."