Irvine again took center stage as Orange County’s largest source of new homes in 2021, a year that marked a return to growth for the area’s most active builders after a shortened selling season in 2020.
The top 20 builders in Orange County last year sold a cumulative 3,677 attached and detached homes in the area last year, according to this week’s Business Journal list.
That’s up about 7.4% from last year’s listing, which included 21 builders.
Two-thirds of the builders on this year’s list—which ranks builders by total OC detached and attached new home sales, and includes those with more than 30 local new home sales in 2021—saw year-over-year boosts in units sold in 2021.
2020 was effectively only a 10-month selling season—albeit a busy 10 months—as the pandemic halted the homebuilding business in its tracks in March and April. The local homebuilding sector rebounded quickly as buyers sought out homes away from denser metro areas in the latter part of 2020, a trend that continued over the course of 2021.
There were 53 new home projects in OC open at the end of 2021, 29 of which were overseen by publicly traded homebuilders (see page 23), according to data from Irvine’s Land Advisors Organization. Ten new communities opened in the last quarter of 2021, while four projects closed out, according to data from the land brokerage.
Prices Near $1.3M
Last year saw a 20% year-over-year boost in sales of new condos, townhomes and other attached-home product types in OC for builders on the list, while detached new homes saw a 5.5% year-over-year boost.
Builders boosted their employment in the county by 5% last year, to nearly 1,700 area workers, according to data collected by the Business Journal for the list.
The median sales price for a new home in Orange County is now approaching $1.3 million, a figure that’s up almost 30% from year-ago levels, according to housing industry data.
The median price for an existing home sale in OC is now close to $1.1 million, a figure up more than 20% from year-ago levels.
Ranch Rewards
Irvine’s two big master-planned communities helped provide over 40% of OC’s total new home sales, according to data from Irvine’s John Burns Real Estate Consulting.
The Irvine Ranch, which includes Irvine Co.-overseen new home developments in Orchard Hills, Portola Springs and elsewhere in the city, totaled 950 sales in 2021. That marked a 19% increase from 2020 levels, according to John Burns’ latest ranking of the country’s largest master-planned communities.
The Irvine Ranch ranked No. 8 among U.S. communities tracked in the annual survey in 2021; it has topped the list in prior years and for nearly a decade-long stretch was the largest source of new homes in the state, though the past two years the Ontario Ranch in Riverside County has surpassed it by total unit sales.
Irvine Pacific, the in-house homebuilding division of Irvine Co. that only builds on the company’s land, totaled nearly half the sales on the Irvine Ranch last year. Its 449 sales were up 41% from year-ago levels, good for the No. 2 spot on the list.
California Pacific Homes, another builder with ties to Irvine Co., placed No. 4 on the list with 286 area sales last year, all of which were on the Irvine Ranch. It has begun looking to build elsewhere (see story, page 22).
More’s in store on the Irvine Ranch.
Extensive grading work is now underway just north of along Portola Parkway in North Irvine, for what will be a new phase of high-end homes at Irvine Co.’s Orchard Hills community, where some new residences sell for $4 million or more.
Over 500 homes could be built at the nearly 260-acre site, according to city records. On average, home sizes at the project, dubbed the Summit, are expected to be in the 3,000 to 4,000 square feet range, records indicate.
For more details on the project and other homebuilding news from Irvine Co., see the March 21 print edition of the Business Journal.
Lennar Leads
Irvine’s other big master-planned community, the Great Park Neighborhoods, ranked No. 23 in the U.S. last year with 655 new home sales, according to John Burns data. That’s up 13% from 2020 levels.
Lennar Corp., long the most active builder at the Great Park Neighborhoods, and an investment partner in both the development itself and in developer Five Point Holdings (NYSE: FPH), benefitted from the growth.
The Miami-based builder (NYSE: LEN), with its West Coast hub in OC, ranks No. 1 on the list with 764 home sales in 2021, up 9% from year-ago levels.
Lennar also has large projects underway elsewhere in Irvine, Anaheim, and other sites across the county. It reported 425 attached home sales in OC last year, up 17%, while its detached home sales of 339 was flat from 2020 levels.
