Houston builders see pandemic rebound
When stay-at-home orders came in March, model home parks and builder sales centers around the Houstonarea went dark. While existing home sales have struggled to return to pre-pandemic levels, new homes have bounced back, builders say.
“We believe there’s a perception among homebuyers presently that new equals clean, which equals safe,” said Lawrence Dean, Houston regional director for Metrostudy, a research and consulting firm for builders, lenders and related industries.
The Miami homebuilder Lennar said its business in Houston began to recover after being hard hit from mid-March to midApril, despite the recent oil crash and layoffs across the energy industry.
“Our sales bounced back in May and June as demand for entry-level product outpaced the fall in oil prices,” Executive Chairman Stuart Miller said in a secondquarter earnings call.
D.R. Horton of Arlington, Lennar and Perry Homes of Houston remained at the top of the Chronicle 100 list of largest home builders operating in the region , ranked by 2019 closings. Together, they accounted for more than one-fourth of builder market share in the Houston area.
Some builders are expecting 2020 to be stronger than last year, despite the pandemic and collapse in oil prices.
Houston’s Legend Homes said it is on track for a 20 percent increase in home sales for 2020. The company, whose brands include Legend Homes, Princeton Classic Homes and Bella Vista Homes, closed 950 sales in the Houston area last year, up 65 percent from 2018.
The company attributed the growth to pent-up demand, low interest rates and customers becoming dissatisfied with their current housing.
Paul Layne, CEO of Howard Hughes Corp., developer of Bridgeland,
The Woodlands and The Woodlands Hills communities, said consumers who have quarantined in their home for several months are looking to upgrade where they live.
“I’ve been projecting and hoping once things start to open, our master-planned communities will see a tremendous surge in home sales,” he said. “It’s absolutely proven to be the case.”
Home sales in Bridgeland, a master-planned community in Cypress, hit a record in May with 111 new home sales, up 73 percent than the previous record in 2019, according to the Hughes Corp. Sales there are up 20 percent year to date.