Cul-de-sac community
Southwest Ranches builds luxury neighborhood.
SOUTHWEST RANCHES— Custom homebuilder Ron Ellish paid about $2 million for a patch of land off Griffin Road three years ago.
“It had one existing house on it — and a whole bunch of cows,” he said.
With available parcels dwindling in Broward County, Ellish saw potential, turning the site into a small, cul-de-sac community of luxury homes in Southwest Ranches.
Ellish, a third-generation builder, renovated and sold the one house and will deliver seven more, each on acre-size lots. His partner on the project is The Spear Group, another custom builder.
The five- and six-bedroom homes in Reserve at the Ranches will have private gates, climatecontrolled wine rooms, large pools and spas. Prices range from$2 million to $3 million.
One home is complete and ready for occupancy and another will be finished by September, Ellish said. When one sells, the builders will start another. The Douglas Elliman real estate firm is marketing the community.
“I still believe people are moving to Florida,” said Ellish, whose Delray Beach-based company also is building in Weston, southern Palm Beach County and Jupiter. “We’re trying to give them something special for the price.”
But Ellish and Spear may have to be patient, said David Cobb, regional director of the Metrostudy research firm.
With the luxury housing market softening across South Florida, so-called speculative building— starting construction with no buyer in place— is increasingly risky, Cobb said.
All across the region, low- and mid-priced homes are in demand due to a lack of supply. There’s not nearly the same urgency for more expensive properties, analysts say.
A recent Metrostudy analysis showed that high-end saleswere sparse in southwestern Broward.
In a survey of his builder clients, “they all say the same thing,” Cobb said. “If you have an attractive price, you’re probably going to be OK. But there’s not a lot of power to raise prices.”
Jack McCabe, an industry analyst based in Deerfield Beach, agrees that the housing sector is in transition, pointing out that the market has hit or recently passed the pinnacle of the latest boom cycle.
But McCabe said Ellish and Spear have limited their risk by building a small project in an area with so few comparable properties under construction.
“If theywere building 100 of these, I might question the timing,” McCabe said. “It’ll be interesting. I think this project has some unique qualities.”