Rancho Mission Viejo LLC has completed land sales for the first batch of homes set to be built within the third phase of development at its South County master-planned community.
The third phase is, by far, the largest to date for RMV, with 7,000 units planned across five different villages.
The initial two phases of the RMV community—which when built out will be nearly twice the size of nearby Ladera Ranch—included about 4,000 homes in total.
The first village at the upcoming project, Rienda, will be a 2,900-home development with a cumulative value in the neighborhood of $2 billion.
Four builders have closed escrow on land for the first batch of construction there, with Lennar, Meritage Homes, PulteGroup and TRI Pointe Homes Inc. set to build 671 houses in seven new communities.
The price paid for the land hasn’t been disclosed. Finished lot values in the area have been averaging more than $500,000, according to data from Irvine’s Land Advisors Organization.
“Closing escrow is a very important and exciting step forward in the development of the Village of Rienda at Rancho Mission Viejo,” said Paul Johnson, executive vice president of community development for Rancho Mission Viejo. “We are looking forward to all that’s to come over the course of the next year, and know that homebuyers will be blown away by the community lifestyle we’ve created.”
TRI Pointe
Rienda expects to open model homes in spring 2022.
TRI Pointe is building two new collections at Rienda, dubbed Paisley and Wildrose, according to Tom Grable, division president of the builder’s Orange County-Los Angeles operations.
It’s the first big local project for the builder since moving its headquarters out of the area.
TRI Pointe (NYSE: TPH), which was founded in Irvine in 2009, relocated its corporate base earlier this year to Nevada, where Chief Executive Doug Bauer is now based.
Its day-to-day operations are still in Irvine, where a bulk of regional employees are located.
Esencia Sold Out
Rancho Mission Viejo, one of OC’s three main master-planned communities alongside the Irvine Ranch and Great Park Neighborhoods, saw a drop-off in sales last year due to a lack of supply, as it neared sell-out of its second phase, the 2,700-unit village of Esencia that opened in 2015.
Esencia officially sold its last home earlier this month.
That community, located adjacent to Ladera Ranch and south of Coto de Caza, followed the opening of the first phase at RMV, the 1,334-home Sendero that launched in 2013 and sold out in two years.
