COLLEYVILLE, Texas — Luxury homebuilder Calais Custom Homes is developing a high-end neighborhood on a roughly 50-acre site in Colleyville, one of the last substantial parcels in the area. As land becomes more and more scarce in northeast Tarrant County, luxury homebuilders are having to get more creative.
“The biggest challenge for our market is just availability of land and availability of lots,” said Paul Rostron, co-owner and managing partner at Calais Custom Homes.
Calais is developing the site in partnership with Maykus Homes and Neighborhoods. The proposed neighborhood, located at Westcoat Drive and West McDonwell School Road, will feature a 55-lot gated community.
Customers seeking luxury homes aren’t as interest rate-sensitive, but they are location-sensitive. Calais Custom Homes has continued to see significant demand for its product despite the slowdown in the overall housing market. While not quite as high as a year ago, Rostron said, the volume of calls from clients is still high.
“There’s only one big 50-acre parcel that’s left in Colleyville, and this is it,” he said.
Calais Custom Homes is a high-end custom homebuilder that primarily operates in northeast Tarrant submarkets, including Southlake, Westlake and Colleyville. The firm also builds homes in places like the Park Cities, Preston Hollow, Argyle and Flower Mound.
“We’ve done several homes down in the Park Cities and Preston Hollow, but we’re so busy out here that we haven’t really ventured down there as much lately, " he said.
Because the firm builds custom homes, the price of its product varies, but typically starts at around $300 a foot, not including the land cost. The firm is building homes that run up to $600 a foot in some communities.
The firm has seen its business grow dramatically over the past few years.
Five years ago, the firm was building about $30 million worth of new homes a year. Last year, it was close to $80 million.
Customers for these types of homes typically seek amenity rich environments and prized school districts. Premium locations are a must, but communities in northeast Tarrant are quickly becoming more and more built-out. Calais entered the lot development business to stay ahead.
City governments are adopting philosophies of minimal growth, and it’s becoming more difficult to get through the entitlement process. Land values have gone through the roof and the cost of infrastructure is up as well.
The idea of a teardown used to be something that happened more prevalently in submarkets like Preston Hollow and Highland Park. Over the past few years, they’ve become more commonplace in northeast Tarrant communities, such as Southlake and Westlake.
Calais Custom Homes currently has several tear downs it’s working through.
“The land values are getting high enough that it’s a good alternative when you have no new land available to build on,” Rostron said.
The firm is having to work harder to secure land. While it has entered into lot development out of necessity, it’s only developed a few small neighborhoods. The northeast Tarrant submarkets are quickly approaching the point of being completely built-out, he said.
In Southlake, there are only two materially significant parcels left, both of which are owned by families who aren’t interested in developing them. In Colleyville, there are only a handful of sites left that could host significant development.
“It’s all about quality. It’s all about being in the right place with the best land to be able to build the best homes out there in the marketplace,” he said.
This story originally appeared in the Dallas Business Journal, click here to visit.
