BUILDING A NICHE; WESTERN PACIFIC AMONG FASTEST-GROWING FIRMS IN COMPETITIVE MARKET FOR HOME DEVELOPERS.Byline: Gregory J. Wilcox Staff Writer It looks and sounds like the good old days of Southern California's home building industry. The air is filled with a chorus of hammering and sawing as a tract of new homes takes shape in the low hills not far from the Tierra Rejada exit on the Moorpark Freeway. Called Cantara, the 138-home development in Moorpark is the latest project of Western Pacific Housing, which is finding the area around the San Fernando Valley San Fernando Valley Valley, southern California, U.S. Northwest of central Los Angeles, the valley is bounded by the San Gabriel, Santa Susana, and Santa Monica mountains and the Simi Hills. to be fertile ground indeed. The Cantara homes are priced between $400,000 and $600,000, and if recent history is any indication, the company won't have any trouble attracting buyers. That's not really remarkable. Demand for new homes is strong throughout the region, and it is now a developers' market, meaning buyers are not getting the kind of price breaks and perks they were a few years ago. What's surprising is that Cantara is being built by a relative newcomer to an industry that has seen its share of consolidation. And one that is enjoying striking success. Home Builder magazine recently ranked El Segundo-based Western Pacific the ninth fastest-growing company of its kind in the nation. It is already the sixth biggest builder in the state and the 41st largest in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. . Western Pacific's operations in Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, stretch from the Inland Empire In·land Empire A region of the northwest United States between the Cascade Range and the Rocky Mountains, comprising eastern Washington, eastern Oregon, northern Idaho, and western Montana. Farming, lumbering, and mining are important to the area. to the Oxnard Plain The Oxnard Plain is a large coastal plain in southwest Ventura County, California bounded by the Santa Monica Mountains, the Santa Susana Mountains, and Oak Ridge (beyond which lies the Conejo Valley) to the east, the Topatopa Mountains to the north, the Santa Clara River Valley . Not a bad resume for a company that was only formed six years ago. ``The trend we've seen since the recession in the early 1990s is consolidation. We've see a lot of major publicly traded homes builders come in and buy up the private companies,'' said Lorry Lynn, a principal at the Meyers Group Real Estate Consulting Service Noun 1. consulting service - service provided by a professional advisor (e.g., a lawyer or doctor or CPA etc.) service - work done by one person or group that benefits another; "budget separately for goods and services" LLC (Logical Link Control) See "LANs" under data link protocol. LLC - Logical Link Control in Irvine. ``For Western Pacific to come in and build up their practice is going against recent trends and says a lot about the company,'' she said. Initially, it did indeed look like Western Pacific would be guilty of suspect timing. When three real estate industry veterans - Gene Rosenfeld, Craig Manchester and Evan Knapp - decided to form the company in 1993 the industry was mired mire n. 1. An area of wet, soggy, muddy ground; a bog. 2. Deep slimy soil or mud. 3. A disadvantageous or difficult condition or situation: the mire of poverty. v. in one of its worst slumps ever. Nevertheless, Rosenfeld, a former president of Kaufman and Broad Home Corp. and now Western Pacific's chairman, believed that the bottom of the recessionary trough had been reached and California would soon turn the corner. Rosenfeld was the money man and he eventually raised $5 million that the fledging company used to make its initial land acquisitions. ``It was still really risky and tough the first couple of years. It was a hugely price-competitive market, and home buyers had gotten used to the fact that when they bought a home there was a certain level of incentives,'' said Knapp, the company's senior vice president of operations. ``If we could keep the capital base and make conservative land purchases we would be all right. And it paid off.'' Western Pacific delivered its first homes in 1996 and has been profitable ever since. The initial project was a 220 unit development in Laguna Niguel. It's first Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. County venture was a 240-unit, entry-level development in Westlake Village that consisted of the Belleza and Allegra Al·leg·ra A trademark for the drug fexofenadine hydrochloride. fexofenadine hydrochloride Allegra, Telfast (UK) Pharmacologic class: Peripherally selective piperidine, selective histamine projects. Before long, Western Pacific's logo graced developments from San Diego San Diego (săn dēā`gō), city (1990 pop. 1,110,549), seat of San Diego co., S Calif., on San Diego Bay; inc. 1850. San Diego includes the unincorporated communities of La Jolla and Spring Valley. Coronado is across the bay. to San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden . Last year, the privately held company privately held company A firm whose shares are held within a relatively small circle of owners and are not traded publicly. had revenue of about $420 million and this year expects sales to top $500 million. Knapp said that two of its major markets are the Thousand Oaks area and the Santa Clarita Valley The Santa Clarita Valley is the valley of the Santa Clara River in Southern California. It stretches through Los Angeles County and Ventura County. Its main population center is the city of Santa Clarita. The valley was part of the 48,612-acre (19,672. , where five projects totaling 500 units are currently under construction. John Stanek, president of Western Pacific's Los Angeles and Ventura counties divisions, acknowledged Thousand Oaks and Santa Clarita are two distinct markets. But they do share the common denominator of having strong school systems, he said, a key factor for families seeking a new home. ``As you move farther west you're not only getting strong school systems, but you get a very different climate and a lifestyle change. It's much more suburban,'' Stanek said. Western Pacific also offers a wide variety of products - from townhomes priced from the $140,000 range to luxurious single family homes selling for around $700,000. ``One of the things we try to do is not have the most expensive house but the best value in a particular marketplace. We may not offer the biggest house or the fanciest house, but it's going to be a great value,'' he said. ``We plan on being here for a long time, and we think the right way to do that is to identify properties that are in the path of growth.'' Analyst Lynn said that this wide variety of product selection works in Western Pacific's favor. ``I definitely see them as a growing company,'' she said. ``They are really all over Southern California and Northern California as well. I think we can see them move up in the ranks as a national home builder. They have been very smart both in positioning themselves in terms of market and geography.'' CAPTION(S): Photo, Map Photo: (Color) Western Pacific Housing President John Stanek shows off one of the houses going up in the first phase of the Cantara tract in Moorpark. Joe Binoya/Special to the Daily News Map: UNDER CONSTRUCTION Western Pacific Housing has nine projects under construction in the region Daily News |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion