How ripe is the U.S. home-building industry for consolidation, given that the chief executives of Standard Pacific Corp. and Ryland Group Inc. expect their merger to kick off a round of consolidation among builders? Well, there definitely aren't as many home builders overall now as there were prior to the downturn, since scarce financing and depressed sales have wiped out many smaller, private builders. There are, however, more publicly traded builders now than in past years.