Fort Bend community takes state title
Riverstone top seller in Texas with 767 house starts last year
HOMEBUYERS in search of new homes in Sugar Land made Riverstone the most active housing community in the Houston region last year.
Builders started construction on 767 houses in the Fort Bend County community in 2014, up from 714 in 2013, according to housing consulting firm Metrostudy. The 3,700-acre neighborhood along Texas 6 south of U.S. 59 is one of the few places left for new houses there. The community straddles Sugar Land and Missouri City.
“2014 was a good year for us,” said Doug Goff, chief operating officer of the Johnson Development Corp. “We sold almost 2,500 homes in our 12 active communities. Riverstone was a big part of that, selling over 700.”
That was enough to also make Riverstone the top seller in Texas and No. 4 in the nation, Metrostudy found.
Houses are selling for record levels in Riverstone, which opened in 2001 and offers amenities such as a new 17-acre recreation complex with a large clubhouse with fitness center, a resort-style pool, eight tennis courts and an open lawn space with a pavilion for events.
The average sales price in Riverstone reached $575,000, up from $560,000 in 2014 and just under $500,000 in 2013, vice president and general manager Trey Reichert said.
“The crazy thing is even in Riverstone with our average home price being over half a million, we’re still seeing a lot of first-time homebuyers,” Reichert said.
He attributes the increase to rising labor and material costs coupled with strong demand from Houston’s job growth.
“At this point, because
inventories are down, supply is down, there’s still a tremendous demand for new houses,” Reichert said.
Since Newland Communities’ Telfair development sold out in 2013, Riverstone and Imperial Sugar Land are the main options for new housing in Sugar Land.
“The main driver is the Sugar Land address and the schools and new construction,” said Kunal Seth, a real estate agent with Re/Max Fine Properties, who specializes in selling new houses in Houston’s southwestern and western suburban areas.
Seth, who moved into a new house in Riverstone about a year ago and bought one next door as an investment, has firsthand experience with the frenzy.
“I actually stood outside the sales office all night just like Black Friday to be one of the first ones to get a lot,” he said.
Seth paid $420,000 including a $60,000 premium for a 12,000-square-foot lakeside lot in late 2013. Today, a comparable new house goes for $580,000, including a $100,000 premium for the lot.
For that, he got a fivebedroom, 4.5-bath house with two downstairs bedroom suites to accommodate extended stays by his family from India.
Seth described situations where builders give preference to top qualified buyers when opening a new section. They might give cash buyers the first shot on Day 1 for sales, then open it up to buyers who put 20 percent down on Day 2, and then buyers who put 5 percent down on Day 3.
On the north side, The Woodlands remained a sought-after community near Exxon Mobil’s new campus.
The Woodlands ranked as the second-most-active community with 538 home starts in 2014. That was down from 713 in 2013 as sales wind down in the 40-year-old community.
Tim Welbes, co-president of The Woodlands Development Co., said more than 1,000 single-family lots remain, and he expects to continue offering new single- and multifamily homes for “quite a few more years,” although the pace of sales will continue to slow.
Aliana, along the Grand Parkway at Airport Boulevard, between Sugar Land and Katy, moved up two spots to No. 3 with 502 home starts in 2014, up from 451.
“You have an option of buying a lower-price-point home in Aliana,” Seth said.
The community, which offers homes from the mid-$200,000s, has been popular among buyers who work in the Energy Corridor and don’t want to be in Katy, Seth said.
Cross Creek Ranch and Firethorne in the Fulshear area have been popular among buyers who want to be closer to the Energy Corridor and Interstate 10.
“There’s so much supply, and the prices are not as high as Riverstone,” Seth said.
Last year’s top-ranked Cinco Ranch fell to No. 7 on the Metrostudy list as home starts were slashed in half to 414 in 2014.
The nearly 25-year-old Katyarea community is approaching buildout along with Newland Communities’ other active projects, Summerwood and Eagle Springs. Home sales in Cinco Ranch have been on the decline since peaking at about 950 in 2012.
“From that time until now, we’ve been progressively selling out of neighborhoods, and we don’t have land to replace them,” said Jennifer Taylor, vice president of marketing for Newland’s Central Region.
With the slowdown in the energy sector, Taylor has seen some softness for homes priced above $400,000.
“People feel comfortable with the name Cinco Ranch,” Taylor said. “They know what they’re going to get in terms of the product, lifestyle, amenities, the schools, the overall masterplanned community offering. There’s some surety to that in an uncertain market.”
Newland next plans to open Elyson, a 3,600-acre community 6 miles north of Interstate 10 along the Grand Parkway in September 2016.
On the north side, Woodforest moved up to No. 4 on the list, with builders starting 501 houses in 2014. Since 2009, about 1,400 houses are occupied out of a planned 5,500 in the community just north of The Woodlands.
“We have a really large range of product, from townhomes in the $200,000s to million-dollar custom homes,” said Shannon League, director of marketing for Woodforest. “We haven’t really seen prices climbing in 2015. We’ve seen prices stay steady.”
Another community that benefited from demand spurred by Exxon Mobil’s expansion and improved roads in the region is Imperial Oaks, a development of Holcomb Properties that moved up 10 spots to No. 15.
Custom builder Partners in Building began offering houses in the $600,000- and $700,000-range there.
“We’re bringing a luxuryhome price point in that neighborhood that never existed before,” said Jim Lemming, president of Partners in Building.