Greenwood Village, Colorado-based home builder, Century Communities, has purchased Atlanta’s No. 2 home builder, Peachtree Communities. With this purchase, Century Communities now has a foothold in the Southeast and the nation’s fifth largest housing marketing [Atlanta] according to Metrostudy.
“The sheer size of it [Atlanta] makes it attractive,” says Dale Francescon, Co-CEO of Century. “The other thing that makes it attractive, at least to us, is that Atlanta is still a recovering market as far as home building is concerned. So we think there’s upside in that market.”
Purchased for approximately $55 million, Peachtree Communities gives Century Communities about a six percent share of Atlanta’s new homes market. In just the past 12 months, Peachtree closed more than 900 homes in more than 30 communities.
The acquisition includes 36 communities with ranch and two-story homes ranging from 1,200 to more than 5,000 square feet. Century Communities now owns 2,120 home sites in the Atlanta area, many of which are geared towards first-time home buyers.
“Peachtree builds larger homes with a lower price per square foot,” said Eugene James, regional director of Metrostudy’s Atlanta office. “The product is more affordable than most other homes [in that size range]. But most of the time they will be a little further out.”
With the purchase of Peachtree Communities, Century announced the hiring of Rich Carruthers, former CEO of Peachtree Communities, to lead the Atlanta operations as executive vice president of the company and serve as its Atlanta Division president. The builder also hired Tom Justice, former COO of Peachtree, as the senior vice president of operations for Atlanta.
Century isn’t the only builder to acquire a company with a major presence in the Atlanta market. Earlier this year, D.R. Horton bought Crown Communities, the No. 1 builder in Atlanta and Meritage Homes bought Legendary Communities, which is based in Atlanta and had a strong presence in the South Atlanta market.
For more information on Century Communities, visit www.CenturyCommunities.com.
*Quotes and statistics provided by Builder Online.