Custom Homes Blog

Houston Dominates Top Communities List

Three Houston communities made the list of the nation’s top 10 master-planned communities based on sales in 2011, according to an annual ranking by RCLCO (Robert Charles Lesser & Co.)

The Woodlands came in at No. 2, Cinco Ranch was No. 3, and Telfair was No. 10.

RCLCO has been tracking communities since 1994.

Among the findings:

Buyers are getting back in the market, now that the future economic outlook seems a little clearer.

Master-plannned communities are competing with a lower volume of short sales and foreclosures in their projects compared with last year.

Some communities are offering buyer incentives, such as free power for a year and $1,000 gift cards at Bridgeland in Houston.

Top selling master-planned communities in 2011:

1. The Villages, Ocala, Fla. 2,307 sales up 9.5%
2. The Woodlands, Houston, 945 sales, up 20.2%
3. Cinco Ranch, Katy, 862 sales, up 5.6%
4. Irvine Ranch, Orange County, Calif., 744 sales, down 22.9%
5. Alamo Ranch, San Antonio, 490 sales, down 11.1%
6. Brambeton, Washington, D.C., 454 sales, up 29%
7. Mountain’s Edge, Las Vegas, 434 sales, down 32.6%
8. Providence, Las Vegas, 421, up 11.4%
9. Lakewood Ranch, Sarasota, Fla. 391, up 73%
10. Telfair, Sugar Land, 381, down 6.2%

And it looks like 2012 is off to a good start too.

The Woodlands newest Village, Creekside Park, is coming of age with more than 1,000 residents, a YMCA and a community park, said Susan Vreeland-Wendt, vice president of marketing for The Woodlands Development Co.

In all of The Woodlands, there are 159 speculative homes on the ground.

“If you needed to come in with a relocating company in a weekend, we could accommodate you,” Vreeland-Wendt said.

In Cinco Ranch, 277 new homes sold in the first three months of the year, up 22% from last year, according to Newland Communities.

Eagle Springs, another Newland project in northeast Houston, 90 new homes were sold in the first quarter, up 29%.

Riverstone, a 3,700-acre project of Johnson Development Corp. in Fort Bend County, is on pace to double its new-home sales this year. So far this year, 223 new houses have been sold, compared with 111 sales through this time last year. Last year, the community reported 302 new-home sales.