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Today Walter offers some 45 different styles of shell houses, employs 530 three-to five-man crews of subcontractors, who put up the shell on the home buyer's plot. Walter houses sell for $1,095 to $3,495 depending on size and style, and he keeps costs down by paying his builders a fixed fee per house, supplying everything except lumber for the construction from his own Dixie Building Supplies Inc. Last year Walter cleared an average of $1,000 profit on every house he built, on an average sales price of only $2,500. Even so, the home buyer saves 20% to 25% on his shell, claims Walter, compared to the cost if the buyer contracted on his own to have it built.
Since the 90% of Jim Walter Corp. house buyers who finance the purchase through the company pay as much as 12% interest on four-or six-year terms, Walter last year grossed more than $5,000,000 in interest payments, some $1,600,000 more than the firm paid out for its own interest and bank charges. Beyond this, there is the profit of the subsidiary company that insures the shell homes against fire and theft. Adding it all up, Jim Walter has made an estimated $9,000,000 in shell housing.