open houses
in the area again, helping restore confidence in the development as a viable community, and now Mariposa is flourishing with a bright future.
thinking outside the box
“We’re asked to think outside the box,” Fietz said. “With Vinnie’s expertise in sales and designs and marketing, it allowed us to be creative and be different.” While Fietz and McNaney are both local guys raised in Albuquerque – McNaney also was a tennis player for New Mexico State University – Pizzonia grew up back east and earned his spurs the hard way.
“I was going to college and was married and we wanted to buy a house, but the only thing I could afford was a 200-year-old farmhouse so I had to learn how to fix it,” he recalled. “Back then, I went to the library and learned how to do whatever it was I needed to do that day. So I was self taught. I taught myself how to fix just about anything in a home.”
bringing it all together
The experience was so enjoyable that Pizzonia gave up plans to go to law school and instead went into custom home building. However, when the economy soured in the northeast, it drove him to Houston, where he went to work for a large production builder. After switching from the construction end to the sales and marketing end, Pizzonia moved up to vice president, but was wooed to Albuquerque by a large builder here. While that didn’t end well, it set Pizzonia on a course to meet up with local builder Scott Grady and they formed Vantage Homes.
Meanwhile McNaney, whose expertise is in land development, had decided to become a builder and formed Twilight Homes. But by then the economy was such that it was virtually impossible to make any headway with a traditional company. And that’s when the three came together to really get things moving.
changing the focus
“The barriers to entry in this business are just huge,” Fietz said. “I don’t think people realize how capital intensive this business is. This business just eats cash and if you don’t have the plan and the wherewithal to be able to deal with deficit issues, it can bring you down fast, especially if you have bank pressure.”
“Our economy and building environment still has not completely recovered. We’re still not healthy. There are some funny things in our market right now and when you look at the longterm horizon, it can be scary. We don’t see a lot of new lots, new development, but we’re changing our focus a little bit. We are starting to move toward new lots and it’s pretty exciting.”