Tri Pointe Homes, the No. 15 company on the 2025 Builder 100 list, is taking its first steps in South Carolina with two planned land acquisitions in Beaufort and Bluffton. The neighborhoods will be the first under the home builder’s newly launched Coastal Carolinas division, established in 2024.
“Our Coastal Carolinas division is moving full steam ahead,” says Gray Shell, the Coastal Carolinas division president. “These transactions exemplify Tri Pointe’s unmatched combination of design innovation and expertise.”
Tri Pointe Homes has identified the Carolinas as an important region for long-term growth. Shortly after the builder spun out its Coastal Carolina division, CEO Doug Bauer shared the company’s goal of 30% delivery volume growth in the Carolinas over the next two years.
“[The Coastal Carolinas] is a natural follow-up to our expansion strategy that we kicked off in late 2018 as we established organic divisions in Charlotte and Raleigh,” Shell tells BUILDER. “As we have grown to a top ten builder in those markets, we felt the coastal markets—for us Charleston, Hilton Head, Bluffton, Savannah—was a natural next step to our expansion strategy.”
Job growth, in-migration from the Northeast, Midwest, and Mid-Atlantic, and relative affordability are among the tailwinds supporting Tri Pointe’s bullish outlook in the Coastal Carolinas. While there is ample supply of affordable product in the targeted markets, Shell says there is an undersupply of homes that offer “elevated design and livability,” creating a strong opportunity for the builder’s premium lifestyle brand.
“We design product in the local market for the consumers in the market. We don’t have a national product portfolio that we take to other markets,” Shell says. “We serve entry-level, first move-up, second move-up, luxury, and move-down all at a premium brand within each of those consumer segments. We are really focused with the local product [in the Coastal Carolinas] on design, execution, and outdoor living.”
Growth Plan
While Tri Pointe Homes has big plans for the Coastal Carolinas, Shell says the builder is focused on achieving the right scale. He says the company’s sweet spot is maintaining market share as the seventh or eighth largest builder. By avoiding chasing aggressive delivery number targets, Tri Pointe Homes will be able to focus on design and product while fostering a strong internal company culture.
“Scale matters in each local market. We would love to be a top ten builder, but we don’t want to be a top five builder because we don’t think that type of growth is sustainable,” he says. “We want to stay in the core markets that are close to jobs, schools, and entertainment and not get too far out into the secondary or tertiary markets. We’d love to be in that 500 closing range in the next five to seven years [in the region].”
Among the four coastal markets of interest for Tri Pointe Homes, Shell says Charleston is the most competitive from a land acquisition standpoint given the large presence of national and regional builders.
Conversely, Hilton Head, Bluffton, and Savannah have less national builder competition.
“We see [Savannah] as probably the best growth market over the next five to seven years of the coastal markets,” Shell says. “The Hyundai plant, the expansion of the port, Gulfstream is headquartered there; we see a lot of employment growth in that market and it’s a little bit of a less competitive land market at the same time.”
Land Acquisition
Tri Pointe Homes plans to deliver single-family homes in Bluffton and townhomes in Beaufort as part of neighborhoods at the sites of its first two Coastal Carolinas land acquisitions.
“The single-family opportunity is walkable to downtown Bluffton. There is a lack of attainable second move-up product in that market that is in the 600s and 700s. We see that as a great infill opportunity,” Shell says. “With the townhome community in Beaufort, having an attainable price point for an attached product is something that is missing. It still has great accessibility back to Hilton Head or down to Savannah.”
Tri Pointe Homes expects to break ground on the two South Carolina communities in mid-2026 and deliver its first homes in late 2027. At the same time, Shell says the company will continue to look at finished lot opportunities in the Savannah and Charleston markets that would deliver homes in 2028 and beyond.
