Orange County’s homebuilding industry took a step backward last year, amid a steep decline in the sale of new condominiums and townhomes.
The county’s 28 largest homebuilders sold 1,777 new single-family homes and condos in 2011, an 11% decline from a year earlier, according to this week’s Business Journal list. That made for a fourth consecutive year that the local homebuilding industry has seen sales of less than 2,000 new homes.
Data for this year’s list was provided by the Costa Mesa offices of Washington, D.C.-based real estate research firm Hanley Wood LLC.
The year-to-year decline seen in this week’s ranking eliminates much of the gains seen in the previous year’s list, when builders here reported 1,989 sales, a 35% year-over-year increase. 2010’s gains were the first yearly increase in total sales since 2004, when the lar-gest builders here sold more than 4,700 homes.
Eighteen builders on this week’s list posted yearly de-clines in sales. Six builders marked increases, and four made list debuts.
There is a big asterisk to the comparisons with 2010. Builders’ sales in this year’s list are ranked by homes closed, while they were ranked by contract sales last year. The gap between closed sales and signed contracts can be a big one.
Publicly traded builders such as Irvine-based Standard Pacific Corp.—No. 8 on this year’s list with 92 homes sold—have been seeing cancellation rates of about 19% of late. The overall decline in sales last year would be less pronounced if 2010’s numbers had also been based on closings rather than contract sales.
One area in which builders definitely did see year-over-year growth was the sale of single-family homes. There were 1,190 new single-family home sales here by companies on this year’s list, representing a 21% increase from a year earlier.
But volumes took a hit with lower-priced condo and townhouse sales, which had made up a majority of new sales locally since the onset of the last housing crash. There were just 587 attached home sales here in 2011, for a 42% decline from year-ago levels.
It’s the first time in six years sales of new condos and townhouses failed to outpace detached home sales in OC.
Irvine Leads
The Irvine Ranch continued to be the prime source of new home sales in OC in 2011. Nine of the top 11 builders on this year’s list generated at least part, if not all, of their local sales from projects on the Irvine Ranch.
There were 764 homes sold on the ranch in 2011, making it the fourth most-active master-planned community in the country last year.
It was also California’s best-selling community by a wide margin for the second year running, according to data from Irvine-based John Burns Real Estate Consulting LLC.
There have been 1,800 home sales on the Irvine Ranch since the start of 2010, including about 120 sales so far this year, according to officials with Newport Beach-based Irvine Company, which owns the land.
The next best-selling master-planned community in California last year was San Diego’s Otay Ranch project, which had 242 sales last year.
Irvine Pacific LP, the in-house building division of Irvine Co., closed on 288 home sales last year, good for the No. 1 spot on this year’s list. The long-dormant build-er was No. 10 a year ago, when it began ramping up operations again.
Yet to Close
About another 50 Irvine Pacific homes were sold last year but had yet to close by year’s end, according to company officials.
Another big seller at the Irvine Ranch was Fairfax, Va.-based Brookfield Homes Corp., No. 4 on this year’s list with 116 sales. The company held the No. 1 position on the list last year.
Brookfield just sold out its Montecito project in Woodbury, according to Irvine Co. officials. It’s also selling in the Colony District in Anaheim.
A new development in Brea was responsible for a large chunk of 2011 sales in OC.
The Blackstone development in Brea is an 800-acre project in the hills between Brea and Fullerton that’s expected to hold almost 360 homes. It’s a joint venture of Standard Pacific and Walnut-based Shea Homes, which took the No. 2 spot on this year’s list with 172 sales.
Shea also is selling in a handful of locations in Aliso Viejo, home to sister company Shea Properties Inc., and also has completed sales for projects it built in La Habra.