New-home sales reached a 15-year high in Orange County last year, thanks to a surge in condominium and attached-home sales and continued development at the area’s four largest master-planned communities.
The 30-most active homebuilders here sold 5,616 new homes and condos, a nearly 15% year-over-year increase, based on this week’s Business Journal list.
There were 2,946 stand-alone homes sold, a 10% year-over-year decrease. Condo, and attached home sales, meanwhile, surged 65% to 2,826. It was the first time in six years that condo and attached-home sales outpaced stand-alone home sales.
Data for the list was provided by the Costa Mesa office of Washington, D.C.-based real estate research firm Hanley Wood LLC and augmented by information from individual builders and Business Journal research.
Last year’s sales are the highest since 2003, when nearly 6,400 new homes and condos sold.
Eighteen builders increased sales year-over-year, including eight of the top 10. Five more than doubled sales compared to the previous year.
Deals brought in nearly $5 billion, as the median price of a new OC home ended the year at nearly $850,000, according to figures from Irvine-based real estate data firm CoreLogic Inc.
New homes cost about 24% more than existing homes in OC, based on median prices paid last year, CoreLogic data shows.
Nearly 38,000 homes sold in OC overall last year at an average price of about $685,000.
Big 4 Focus
Builders working on the area’s four largest master-planned communities—the Irvine Ranch and Great Park Neighborhoods in Irvine, Rancho Mission Viejo in South OC, and Lake Forest’s Baker Ranch development—reaped most of the rewards.
A total of 3,724 new-home sales took place at those locations, according to data from Irvine-based John Burns Real Estate Consulting. That’s two-thirds of total new-home sales.
Great Park Neighborhood’s latest homes, the 653-home Parasol Park, had an outsized impact on the skewed figures in condo versus stand-alone home sales. Despite having prices that in many cases top $1 million, it mostly has attached homes, and was more than two-thirds sold out at the end of the year.
Cadence, the 1,007-home development coming online at Great Park Neighborhoods in the next month, will focus on stand-alone homes rather than attached offerings.
Rancho Mission Viejo’s latest development at its Escencia community also has its share of attached homes, some of which are priced under $500,000, among the most affordable new homes on the local market.
Irvine Pacific Tops
• Irvine Pacific LP, the in-house building arm of Newport Beach-based Irvine Co., remained the No. 1 builder here with a reported 851 sales, up 41%. It builds only on Irvine Co.-owned land on the Irvine Ranch, which was again the best-selling master planned community in OC last year, with about 1,800 sales.
Irvine Pacific had 47% of the transactions on the Irvine Ranch.
It focuses on some of the least expensive homes on the Ranch.
• That’s not the case with Horsham, Pa.-based Toll Brothers, the country’s largest builder of luxury homes and currently OC’s most active builder of homes topping both $1 million and $2 million.
Toll, which has several projects under way at Irvine Co.’s Orchard Hills development at prices over $2 million, plus pricey development at Irvine’s new Altair community, among other varied projects, took the No. 2 spot with 686 sales, up 41%.
“What we have selling right now is selling very well, (and) we continue to raise prices,” Chief Executive Doug Yearley told analysts during its most recent earnings call while discussing strong activity in the region.
The company’s gross profit margins have been 50% on some area development, he said. Most builders are happy to achieve 20% margins on area developments, even in a hot market.
• Rounding out the top five are Walnut-based Shea Homes, with 408 sales, down by one year-over-year; Irvine-based California Pacific Homes, another builder focused on Irvine Ranch deals, which was up 25%; and Newport Beach-based William Lyon Homes Inc., whose sales rose 45% to 354.
• Lennar Corp. completed the buy of Irvine-based CalAtlantic Group Inc. last month. CalAtlantic took the No. 7 spot on its final listing with 320 sales, down 26%.
Had the two builders’ sales been combined, they’d rank No. 3.
