A leading real estate asset management firm in Canada has acquired an ownership stake in The New Home Company, an 18-month-old builder that sold 100 homes in southern California in 2010.
Toronto-based Tricon Capital Group joins IHP Capital and Watt Cos. as investor-owners in The New Home Co., which was launched in September 2009 by John Laing Homes’ former CEO Larry Webb. A New Home spokesperson, tells Builder that New Home did not disclose the terms of its deal with Tricon. CNW Group, a public relations and news service that’s part of the PR newswire network, reports Tricon invested US$10 million into the builder.
CEO David Berman said in a prepared statement that his company was particularly impressed with New Home’s “blue chip management team.” Builder could not reach Berman for further comment at presstime. CNW reports that Triconintends to hold onto its investment in The New Home Co. until the formation of its successor U.S. distressed fund, Tricon XI, to which it would offer its investment in the builder.
New Home’s nascent profile got a huge boost in February 2010 when it was one of six builders that The Irvine Co. selected as contractors for its inaugural leap into new-home construction at its massive Irvine Ranch. New Home’s neighborhoods at Irvine Ranch—Carmel at Woodbury, StoneTree at Woodbury and Four Quartets at Woodbury—sold 83 $1 million-plus homes last year. The builder also sold 17 homes at Madeira at Elk Grove in Sacramento County.
New Home’s spokesperson says that the company’s land assets currently include five completed lots in Roseville, Calif., and 17 in Granite Bay, Calif., where it plans to start building semi-custom luxury homes on 20,000-square-foot lots this March. A more ambitious project will take place at Lambert Ranch in Irvine, where New Home controls 50 acres and plans to build a 169-home gated master planned community. The spokesperson says that project is scheduled to start in 2012.
The company, he adds, continues to search for land to build on throughout California, and specifically in San Diego and Orange counties, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento.
John Caulfield is senior editor for BUILDER magazine.
Learn more about markets featured in this article: Los Angeles, CA, San Francisco, CA.
