Courtesy Great Southern Homes
Following a merger with DiamondHead Holdings, South Carolina–based company Great Southern Homes (GSH)—No. 48 on the 2023 Builder 100—recently became the industry’s newest publicly traded home builder.
DiamondHead Holdings has been renamed as United Homes Group (UHG), and Great Southern Homes will continue to operate under its own name as a sub-brand.
“For over 20 years I have worked to build GSH into the leading Southeast home builder it is today,” says Michael Nieri, Great Southern Homes founder and CEO, when the news was first shared in September 2022. “I am excited for the next chapter for GSH, where through the combination of my operational expertise with David Hamamoto’s public company and capital markets experience, we plan to grow UHG into a national home builder.”
To learn more about the company, BUILDER spoke with Nieri about merger motivations, their first day on the market, product additions, and the company’s growth plans. See below for five facts on the past, present, and future of United Homes Group.
1. Continued sales success: According to BUILDER’s annual Builder 100 list, in 2014 Great Southern Homes had 386 closings. In 2016, the company closed 756 units and secured the third spot on the top 10 list of fastest-growing private companies. In 2022, the builder ranked No. 45 with 1,706 closings, and it landed at No. 48 this year with 1,605 closings.
“If you talk to any smaller builder, 1,000 units a year is a huge goal, and it’s hard to get to that number and then it’s hard to stay at that number,” says Nieri. “Luckily, we’ve been able to do that and get up to 1,600 to 1,700 sales a year pretty consistently.”
2. Determined to grow: With an upward trajectory of sales and a runway of leads in front of him, Nieri wanted to take his private company a step further. But, he wasn’t looking to sell and lose the reins. He wanted to be a part of the company’s future.
“Prior to meeting Tom [O’Grady] and Jim [Martell], I had been approached to sell my company,” he says. “In my mind, I wasn’t a seller. I kept looking to be a buyer. I wanted to explore how I grow my company.”
3. Focused on the Southeast: Headquartered in Columbia, South Carolina, Great Southern Homes builds entry-level and first-time move-up homes throughout South Carolina, the Augusta, Georgia area, and soon in North Carolina.
Moving forward, the company aims to continue to serve new-home buyers in these areas. “We’ve identified 10 of the top 50 markets in the Southeast,” says Nieri. “The easy way to do this is to stay in the markets that I’m currently building in, approach builders, and add those on.”
“We’ve already been talking to local builders about being tucked into our bigger company,” he continues. “So far, we’ve found a number that are willing to talk to us, let us look at their books. We have a good story. I speak their language.”
4. Reflecting on the first day trading: On March 30, the merger officially closed, and its stock began trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker “UHG” the next day. The company’s shares surged 63% in their first day of trading on a volume of 794,509 to $20.80.
Since then, the stock has settled between $10 to $13.
5. Exploring build-to-rent options: Beyond for-sale product, the United Homes Group team also has expressed interest in developing future build-to-rent communities.
“We’ve designed some plans already around purpose-built rentals,” says Nieri. “We’ve had conversations with large development companies. We’re definitely going to be in that. I can’t tell you how many we would like to build, but that will be part of our business plan going forward.”
