<b><b>The City is driving change in the housebuilding industry, prompting consolidation and takeovers. Steve Menary takes a detailed look at how the analysts rate the top housebuilders</b></b><br><b>Considered a &amp;"dog&amp;" of a sector by investors in recent years, the construction and building materials section of the stock exchange has been buzzing with activity recently. </b><br><b><b>Consolidation </b></b><br> This is mainly due to consolidation in the housebuilding industry, most notably Wimpey's acquisition of Alfred McAlpine's housing arm for £461 million last month. <p></p><p>This was the culmination of a string of deals, including Persimmon taking out Beazer, Wilson Connolly buying Wainhomes and firms such as Fairview and Linden going private. Bearish investors, shell-shocked from the dot.com wipe out, have started to pile into bricks instead of clicks, resulting in the sector outperforming the FTSE 100 index by 70% over the last year.</p><p> Despite this, many housebuilding executives are convinced that their businesses remain undervalued. </p><p>Mike Killoran, group finance director at Persimmon, said: &amp;"Housebuilders are still on a derisory rating. The sector has produced excellent earnings growth and dividends for shareholders in recent years but that has not translated into our ratings. </p><p>&amp;"If we produce around 50 pence of earnings per share and our shares …