Landsea Homes Corporation, a publicly traded residential homebuilder, announced today it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Vintage Estate Homes, a Florida-based homebuilder with communities in Florida and Texas. This transaction, once completed, would mark Landsea Homes’ entry into the Florida and Texas housing markets.
Founded in 2012, Vintage Estate Homes has always had the goal of constructing superior homes at best-in-class value, with premium building materials and an exquisite attention to detail. Over the past several decades, Vintage Estate Homes, through its commitment to those goals, has earned a reputation for outstanding design and for building lasting relationships with their customers. Vintage Estate Homes currently has new home communities across several high-growth real estate markets in Florida, including Orlando, Palm Bay and Melbourne, as well as Texas, including Austin and San Antonio. Upon the closing of this transaction, Vintage Estate Homes employees are expected to transition and become part of the Landsea Homes team. Builder Advisor Group represented Vintage Estate Homes as its broker in this transaction.
Landsea Homes intends to purchase Vintage Estate Homes for $54.6 million in cash. This transaction is expected to close in early May, subject to the satisfaction of certain customary closing conditions.
“Since late last year, we have been looking for an ideal opportunity for us to expand into the Florida and Texas markets, and we are pleased to achieve that with the addition of Vintage Estate Homes,” said John Ho, Chief Executive Officer of Landsea Homes. “As an innovative homebuilder with a long-established presence in these markets, the Vintage Estate Homes team is renowned for providing superior homes at superior value and exceptional customer service with an approach that is very similar to ours. This acquisition provides Landsea Homes with the immediate opportunity to gain size and scale in key markets that are consistently maintaining strong housing fundamentals. This is another step forward in our strategic expansion plans to create communities in highly-desired locations across the United States and provide high-quality homes where residents can enjoy ‘Living in their Element.'”
Commenting on the acquisition, Scott Buescher, President of Land and Operations at Vintage Estate Homes, stated: “We are very excited to have our Vintage Estate Homes family join the talented team at Landsea Homes. Their veteran homebuilding leadership team is very impressive, as is their forward-thinking vision, deep commitment to a culture of character and integrity, unmatched customer service and dedication to becoming the homebuilder of choice in each of their markets.”
The Florida housing market has remained strong, including locations like Orlando, where the supply of existing homes in February 2021 dropped to its lowest level in 15 years, according to the National Association of Realtors. The National Association of Realtors also reported in February that local home sales in the Orlando market grew year-over-year for the eighth consecutive month, with sales up nearly 20% from a year earlier and the median sales price rose 12% from the previous year.
Austin remains one of the nation’s strongest migration hotspots. It was recently ranked by Redfin as earning the second-largest gain in total home value percentage among the 50 most populous U.S. metropolitan areas in February 2021, with year-over-year growth of 17.9%. Austin trailed only Jacksonville, Florida (+21.2%) and ranked ahead of Charlotte (+17.3%), Phoenix (+16.1%) and Sacramento (+14.8%) among the top five markets. Austin had a higher net inflow of residents than any other major metropolitan city in January 2021, according to Redfin, with nearly 45% of Austin home searches on their website from users in other metropolitan areas – up from 32.6% a year earlier.
For more information about Landsea Homes, visit www.landseahomes.com.