53.8 F
Laguna Hills
Tuesday, Mar 19, 2024
-Advertisement-

Homebuilders Post 90% Jump, Most Sales Since ’04

Orange County homebuilders last year posted their best year for sales since 2004, buoyed by the opening of several masterplanned communities, as well as continued strong sales on the Irvine Ranch.

The county’s 30 largest homebuilders sold 3,550 new single-family homes and condos here in 2013, a nearly 90% jump from 2012, according to this week’s Business Journal list.

Last year’s results marked the first time in six years that combined sales of stand-alone homes and condominiums for companies on our list topped the 2,000 mark and the first time in eight years that there were more than 3,000 sales.

Sales of single-family homes, which are typically pricier than condos, topped the 2,000 mark on their own last year, driven by large new communities opening in Irvine and Rancho Mission Viejo, as well as a number of smaller but strong-selling projects in Brea, Buena Park, Huntington Beach and La Habra.

Single-family home sales, which totaled 2,479, were up by more than 100% from 2012, increasing for the third straight year.

Condo and townhouse sales, which made up a majority of the region’s new sales every year between 2006 and 2010, posted a 68.4% year-over-year increase, reversing two years of declines. Those sales totaled 1,071 last year.

Sales increases were more pronounced at the top of the latest list. Each of the top 20 builders on the list had improved local sales last year.

Data for the list was provided by the Costa Mesa office of Washington, D.C.-based real estate research firm Hanley Wood LLC, augmented by data from individual builders and the Business Journal.

Avoiding Wider Trends

Last year’s OC boost came in a housing market that was much rockier outside county lines, particularly in the second half of the year as interest rates inched up and buyer demand waned.

2013 from a national industry perspective was “the sixth worst year on record for new home sales,” according to Scott Stowell, chief executive of Irvine-based Standard Pacific Corp., the largest builder based in Orange County.

Standard Pacific, despite the tough market, posted the fourth most profitable year in its nearly 50-year history, with pretax income of $257.7 million, Stowell told analysts this month.

The company ranked No. 2 among Orange County builders last year, with 371 sales, a nearly 60% increase over 2012 levels.

StanPac, in addition to the La Floresta and Blackstone developments in Brea, is also building at the Portola Springs community in Irvine and was among the first batch of builders at Rancho Mission Viejo in San Juan Capistrano, one of the biggest new-home developments under way in OC.

Rancho Mission Viejo, which opened in June, was the best-selling new masterplanned community in the U.S. last year, with 360 sales in 2013, according to a recent report by John Burns Real Estate Consulting LLC in Irvine.

Other builders on this week’s list with projects under way at Rancho Mission Viejo include Walnut-based Shea Homes, No. 3; William Lyon Homes of Newport Beach, No. 7; TRI Pointe Homes in Irvine, No. 10; and Westlake Village-based Ryland Homes, No. 17.

The second best-selling new masterplanned community in the U.S. last year, with 245 sales, was Great Park Neighborhoods in Irvine.

The first phase of development at that community, called Pavilion Park, opened in late September and will have 726 homes upon build-out.

Through mid-February, there had been 319 sales at Pavilion Park, according to representatives of Aliso Viejo-based FivePoint Communities, the project’s master developer.

Miami-based Lennar Corp., which has three projects under way at Pavilion Park, has sold nearly 90 homes at the development, the most of the eight builders currently there.

Those sales, along with other projects in Irvine and elsewhere in OC, pushed the company to the No. 4 spot on the list, a jump of five places from 2012.

Irvine-Dominant

The Irvine Ranch continued to be the biggest source of new-home sales in OC last year.

Projects there—including Stonegate, Portola Springs, Cypress Village, Woodbury and Laguna Altura—reported 1,444 sales, making it the largest masterplanned community in California last year, according to John Burns Real Estate.

Newport Beach-based Irvine Company’s in-house building division, Irvine Pacific LP, continues to be a prime beneficiary of the strong sales on the company’s land.

It had 1,132 sales there last year, keeping it in the No. 1 spot on the Business Journal’s list for the third-straight year.

The builder’s sales were up more than 150% over 2012 levels.

Additional Irvine projects coming up, including the Orchard Hills community in Irvine and an unnamed project next to Stonegate with early-stage work under way, are likely to keep Irvine Pacific near the top of the builder list for the foreseeable future.


Download the 2014 OC’s LARGEST HOMEBUILDERS list (pdf)

Want more from the best local business newspaper in the country?

Sign-up for our FREE Daily eNews update to get the latest Orange County news delivered right to your inbox!

Mark Mueller
Mark Mueller
Mark is the Editor-in-Chief of the Orange County Business Journal, one of the premier regional business newspapers in the country. He’s the fifth person to hold the editor’s position in the paper’s long history. He oversees a staff of about 15 people. The OCBJ is considered a must-read for area business executives. The print edition of the paper is the primary source of local news for most of the Business Journal’s subscribers, which includes most of OC’s major corporate and community players. Mark’s been with the paper since 2005, and long served as the real estate reporter for the paper, breaking hundreds of commercial and residential real estate stories. He took on the editor’s position in 2018.
-Advertisement-

Featured Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-

Related Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-