There’s a lot to be learned from touring communities, and during PCBC in late May I was able to join my colleague Rachel Beaver to lead a busload of builders, developers, architects, building product manufacturers, and other industry participants on a tour of three major housing developments in California’s Orange County.
These developments included The Meadows by Toll Brothers in Lake Forest; Solis Park, a Great Park Neighborhood in Irvine with six different builders, and The Landing by Brookfield Homes in Tustin.
Collectively, they included 22 different product lines, ranging from stacked flats to townhomes to single-family homes—all of which were offered in high-quality, amenity-rich settings. Here is what we learned:
What’s in a Name?
The name of the tour was “The Laboratory of New Home Product,” which was true—these communities highlighted the latest and greatest offerings from some of Southern California’s best. After seven hours of walking mostly two- and three-story product, however, we could have changed the name to “Density by Design,” highlighting the market’s ability to deliver mostly million-dollar-plus homes on lots that never exceeded 4,500 square feet.
Demand is Strong
Across all of the product lines visited, the sales pace averaged 5.5 units per month (ranging from two to nearly 14 sales per month) over the last three months. In fact, The Landing, which opened about a year ago, is expected to sell out in a matter of a few months, as there is a 12,000-person interest list (1,500 of which are fully qualified) for the homes that remain. This is despite all the higher interest rates and other market uncertainty that came about during its sales life cycle, reflecting not only the quality product but also the walkability (and accessibility) of the site and its value relative to nearby Irvine.
Dense Homes Can Still Feel (and Be) Big
All six of the product lines at The Meadows were detached with relatively small lot sizes of 4,400 square feet or smaller. Despite this density, homes ranged from just under 2,000 to nearly 3,600 square feet, creating some truly great spaces. Sometimes that came in the form of soaring volume ceilings, and other times it was highly functional/usable yards that did not appear to match their true size (way more private swimming pools than we would have imagined). This quality product, along with a resort-style recreation center, 12 acres of parks/sports fields, and 10 acres of dedicated open space, allow the builder to achieve prices in the $1.6 million to $2.4 million range—and still sell an average of nearly five homes per series per month over the past three months.
