Home builder sees rise amid pandemic
David Weekley Homes was experiencing nearrecord sales in early 2020 before the pandemic put a halt to the frenzy.
In mid-March, when the Houston region began shutting down amid stayat-home orders for nonessential workers, the company started showing homes virtually and by appointments only. Now, its sales centers and model homes are back — with safety protocols — sales have returned as well.
May sales in Houston and across the company’s 20-market portfolio surpassed pre-pandemic projections, said Ladd Fargo, Weekley’s chief operating officer.
“April started off really slow, and then every week got a little bit better,”
Fargo said.
Fargo attributes the rebound to low interest rates and people sitting around their houses for many weeks and realizing the want more space or a different layout.
“We’ve been pleasantly surprised that Houston has done as well if not better than the rest of the country,” Fargo said.
Founded in Houston in 1976, Weekley ranked No. 8 on the Chronicle 100’s list of private companies.
The company builds a range of home types, from $225,000 starter homes to $1 million high-end properties through its “buildon-your-lot” division, across the United States.
In recent years, the company has increased sales of its Imagination line of homes geared toward first-time and downsizing buyers. Sales of the Imagination series were up 50 percent last year over 2018, Fargo said. From 2018 to the first half of 2020, the Imagination sales as a share of all sales nearly doubled.
Weekley earned $2.2 billion in revenue last year, up slightly from 2018.
As a result of the pandemic, Fargo said, the company is beginning to offer new designs that offer more work and home school spaces, as well as video conferencing nooks.
“We’ve been pleasantly surprised that Houston has done as well if not better than the rest of the country.” Ladd Fargo, chief operating officer