Adobe Stock Chad McDermott

Many builders in north Colorado lack the scale to engage in large housing developments, so some are looking to their national competitors for help. BizWest reports:

Local home builders have figured out their own ways to compete against the national home builders, but for the most part, they’ve found that collaboration is safer than head-to-head competition.

Four local home builders — WestMark Homes, Bellisimo, Hartford Homes and Spanjer Homes — were represented on a panel at the inaugural Northern Colorado Real Estate Summit on Tuesday.

Landon Hoover, president and partner in Hartford Homes, which builds just in Northern Colorado, said that the recession changed everything for the home builder.

Before the recession, Hartford built neighborhoods on its own. But after the recession, financial considerations came more into play and it became difficult to get the financial backing to do big projects. National builders, meanwhile, had access to capital that the local builders didn’t have. By partnering with the national builders, Hartford was able to build neighborhoods in the character it wanted and that customers expected but have the national builder assume some of the cost, especially on amenities such as parks, pools and trails. Hartford now partners on about 50 percent of projects.

“National home builders will win on scale,” Hoover said, “so partnering is less of a risk.”

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