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May 26, 2022

Pacesetter Homes Texas Continue Climb Up Builder 100 List

Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth, TX – Pacesetter Homes Texas has earned its highest ranking so far on Builder Magazine’s Builder 100 list, which highlights US homebuilders with the highest number of closings each year.

The homebuilder climbed to 76th on 2022’s list, six spots higher than last year, with 844 closings in 2021. Pacesetter Homes Texas officially made the list for the first time in 2017 at #91 and has continued to make its way up the rankings each year.

“Pacesetter has worked very hard to build its pipeline of lot supply to be able to grow the number of home deliveries over the years,” said LaNelle Deardorf, Regional Vice President, Qualico US. “In an extremely competitive environment, the most important factors have been the relationships that we’ve built with land sellers and brokers and our ability to continuously perform on our commitments with them, as well as our banking partners.”

“I think it shows that we are a well-established presence and can compete with other well-known builders in our market,” she added.

The expansion of Pacesetter Homes has allowed the team to grow and climb the ranks of the Builder 100 List.

After growing quickly in Austin, the homebuilder expanded to the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) market in 2017, going from 6 deliveries in DFW in 2018 to almost 300 in 2021. This growth was also marked by the addition of Qualico Communities in Dallas-Fort Worth last year.

“This has a positive impact on our relationships with developers and bankers as we continue to look for land and available lots,” said Dennis Ciani, Marketing Director, Pacesetter Homes Texas. “It helps to convince potential homebuyers of our strength and experience and provides them with confidence when choosing Pacesetter Homes for their new home purchase. In addition, it helps in attracting new subcontractors and vendors.”

The Top 100 list shows Pacesetter Homes Texas’ consistency and growth, regardless of the changes the market may be seeing, Dennis added.

Continuing to climb the Builder 100 list is a significant accomplishment due to multiple challenges Pacesetter Homes Texas has overcome in the past few years.

“High demand for housing, increased competition, and COVID all have impacted our homebuilding operations as it relates to supply chain issues and delivery of materials,” Dennis said. “These issues created a backlog on our starts and closing of our homes.”

LaNelle echoed the fact that timelines were noticeably affected by a number of factors.

“Development and construction cycle times have lengthened significantly during the pandemic due to labour and material shortages, as well as municipalities being overwhelmed by demand for permits and inspections,” LaNelle said. 

To help mitigate the effects of some of these challenges, the Pacesetter Homes Texas team worked hard to adjust to changes stemming from the pandemic, such as working from home part-time or full-time, while continuing to provide the best customer service possible.

“Weekly meetings with our lenders ensured we could get our customers through the mortgage process to start their homes,” said Dennis. “In addition, weekly phone calls by our sales and construction team with each of our customers kept them informed of their home’s construction process. In some communities, we started to pre-plan each home on a homesite and created colour packages to select from in order to release more homes to construction.”

As well, in select neighbourhoods in Dallas, the team adjusted their field operations to help manage the building of each home. In high volume neighbourhoods, a project manager oversees the team to the foundation stage and then hands it off to field managers responsible for the additional construction stages of each home.

“This process allows each field manager to focus on a specific area of the building process and increases the communication with a smaller group of vendors,” said Dennis. “This has helped to prioritize and streamline the scheduling process to decrease the number of days in the cycle time to build the home.”

Dennis and LaNelle both noted that continuing to maintain strong working relationships with suppliers and vendors, as well as bringing some new vendors into the mix, has also helped improve home completion timelines.

Looking forward, the team has plans to continue its growth in both Texas markets, leveraging Qualico Communities’ presence in Dallas-Fort Worth to help increase Pacesetter Homes’ land positions in that area, as well as working with major land developers to help secure more lots in general.

“As both prices and interest rates increase, we are looking to move into new submarkets on the outer bands of both Austin and Dallas,” Dennis said. “Small towns such as Jarrell and Bertram on the outskirts of Austin and Pilot Point and Waxahachie near Dallas are examples of this.”

Increasing the number of locations that allow a multi-unit townhome product is another way the team plans to add to Pacesetter Homes Texas’ growth.

With many successful strategies at play and a focus on continued expansion and growth, Pacesetter Homes Texas plans to continue its climb up the Builder 100 list for years to come.

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