On Monday, Lennar announced that it plans to purchase CalAtlantic Homes for $5.7 billion in an acquisition that would create the nation’s No. 1 builder by revenue. The transaction is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2018, as reported by CNBC.

When D. R. Horton bought Forestar earlier this year, the builder gained all of its land position amounting to thousands of developed homesites. The merger between Lennar and CalAtlantic would grant Lennar a sizeable supply of nearly 65,000 homesites in 41 housing marketing and in 17 states. This would certainly be good news for Lennar as the homebuilding industry is currently struggling with higher land costs and a labor shortage. Higher land costs equate to higher home costs and in many markets (including Atlanta) this is pricing builders out of the affordable homes market.

Lennar’s statement on the acquisition highlighted several key figures:

• The merger would grant the builder a top 3 position in 24 of the 30 largest MSAs and would earn a combined revenue in excess of $17 billion and equity market capitalization of $18 billion
• The builders expects $75 million and $250 million in synergies in FY 2018 and FY 2019, respectively
• Consideration is approximately 80 percent stock and 20 percent cash

Lennar’s press release says, “The combined company will control approximately 240,000 homesites and will have approximately 1,300 active communities in 49 markets across 21 states, where approximately 50 percent of the U.S. population currently lives.”

The biggest downfall to this merger will be for CalAtlantic staff as Lennar is fully staffed and most likely capable of absorbing all of CalAtlantic’s communities and land without needing additional staff. So, heads up Atlanta homebuilders, if you are looking for talent, CalAtlantic has a lot of it that will soon be on the street and looking.