Award recipients representing the top 10 area homebuilders by sales and unit volume were recognized at HBAR’s market forecast seminar this month. (David Clark Photography)
After years of continued growth in the number of homes built and sold in the region, the most productive homebuilders in and around Richmond saw a dip in those numbers in 2023 – a drop that the industry’s local trade group calls a reflection of inventory, not demand.
At its annual market forecast seminar this month, the Home Building Association of Richmond announced its lists of the top 10 member builders for 2023 based on sales and unit volume.
The top two builders remained unchanged from the previous year, with Ryan Homes and Main Street Homes taking the No. 1 and 2 spots, respectively.
Stanley Martin Homes broke into the top three, swapping spots with HHHunt Homes, which dropped to fourth.
That puts two out-of-town firms, both from Northern Virginia, in the top three of the Richmond region’s most productive homebuilders.
Ryan, out of Reston, remained on top with 895 units built, nearly double the output of the next builder on the list, though Midlothian-based Main Street’s sales volume for its 449 units was closer, with $246 million compared to Ryan’s $383 million.
Stanley Martin, also headquartered in Reston, sold 446 units – just three fewer than Main Street – with $182 million in sales volume, while HHHunt, which has a corporate office in Glen Allen, brought in $139 million with 337 units sold.
An aerial shot of Stanley Martin’s ReTreat at One development. (Image courtesy Stanley Martin Homes)
With projects such as the massive ReTreat at One in Henrico contributing to its local output, Stanley Martin increased its numbers from 328 units and $125 million the previous year, while HHHunt’s dropped from 433 units and $162 million in 2022. Comparatively, Ryan’s and Main Street’s numbers didn’t move much year-to-year.
HBAR’s numbers are determined from data supplied by builders and research firm Integra Realty Resources–Richmond.
Rounding out last year’s top 10 sales list were No. 5 Eagle Construction of VA ($107 million), No. 6 Eastwood Homes ($104 million), No. 7 StyleCraft Homes ($89 million), No. 8 RCI Builders ($74 million), No. 9 CraftMaster Homes ($67 million) and No. 10 Schell Brothers ($59 million). On the home closings list, StyleCraft place fifth with 202, Eastwood sixth with 193, Eagle seventh with 151, CraftMaster eighth with 132, D.R. Horton ninth with 104, and RCI 10th with 97.
| Top 2023 builders by $ volume: | Top 2023 builders by units: |
| 10: Schell Brothers: $59M | 10: RCI Builders: 97 homes |
| 9: CraftMaster: $67M | 9: DR Horton: 104 |
| 8: RCI Builders: $74M | 8: CraftMaster: 132 |
| 7: StyleCraft: $89M | 7: Eagle: 151 |
| 6: Eastwood: $105M | 6: Eastwood: 193 |
| 5: Eagle: $108M | 5: StyleCraft: 202 |
| 4: HHHunt Homes: $139M | 4: HHHunt Homes: 377 |
| 3: Stanley Martin: $182M | 3: Stanley Martin: 446 |
| 2: Main Street Homes: $246M | 2: Main Street Homes: 449 |
| 1: Ryan Homes: $383M | 1: Ryan Homes: 895 |
A tally of all of the builders on each list showed that sales volume among the top 10 totaled $1.45 billion in 2023, down from $1.5 billion in 2022 but above the $1.3 billion brought in in 2021. New home closings last year totaled 3,046, down from 3,246 in 2022 and 3,162 in 2021.
While the numbers appear to show a decline in productivity and sales among area builders, HBAR CEO Danna Markland said they do not reflect demand but rather a tipping point in the region’s available lot inventory.
Danna Markland
Developers and builders burned through their inventory through each of the previous three years, Markland said, adding that there is “an insufficient capacity of approved and feasible lots in the pipeline.”
“The deceleration of sales in 2023 has little to nothing to do with demand,” Markland said, adding that new-home sales numbers were strong last year compared to the years that preceded the pandemic and the abnormal numbers that came with it.
Markland said the deceleration of sales “should be a warning sign” as the region looks to up its workforce and economy.
“Businesses in the region talk about ‘workforce’ as a major barrier to growth. The workforce problem is a housing problem,” she said. “Unless we get more approved lots on the ground, the inventory pipeline will continue to decline, and with it so will housing availability. You know what that means, prices will climb.”
Of last year’s dip compared to previous years, Markland added, “I would say no one in the industry uses 2020, 2021 or 2022 as a barometer. Those years were a gift to the region’s economic growth. It begs the question: what happens to the war on talent when the pipeline gets too small?”
Correction: The top 10 builders based on sales volume and the total of those amounts were previously misreported. Schell Brothers ranked No. 10 on the list with $59 million, and the total tally with that amount included comes out to $1.45 billion.
Award recipients representing the top 10 area homebuilders by sales and unit volume were recognized at HBAR’s market forecast seminar this month. (David Clark Photography)
After years of continued growth in the number of homes built and sold in the region, the most productive homebuilders in and around Richmond saw a dip in those numbers in 2023 – a drop that the industry’s local trade group calls a reflection of inventory, not demand.
At its annual market forecast seminar this month, the Home Building Association of Richmond announced its lists of the top 10 member builders for 2023 based on sales and unit volume.
The top two builders remained unchanged from the previous year, with Ryan Homes and Main Street Homes taking the No. 1 and 2 spots, respectively.
Stanley Martin Homes broke into the top three, swapping spots with HHHunt Homes, which dropped to fourth.
That puts two out-of-town firms, both from Northern Virginia, in the top three of the Richmond region’s most productive homebuilders.
Ryan, out of Reston, remained on top with 895 units built, nearly double the output of the next builder on the list, though Midlothian-based Main Street’s sales volume for its 449 units was closer, with $246 million compared to Ryan’s $383 million.
Stanley Martin, also headquartered in Reston, sold 446 units – just three fewer than Main Street – with $182 million in sales volume, while HHHunt, which has a corporate office in Glen Allen, brought in $139 million with 337 units sold.
An aerial shot of Stanley Martin’s ReTreat at One development. (Image courtesy Stanley Martin Homes)
With projects such as the massive ReTreat at One in Henrico contributing to its local output, Stanley Martin increased its numbers from 328 units and $125 million the previous year, while HHHunt’s dropped from 433 units and $162 million in 2022. Comparatively, Ryan’s and Main Street’s numbers didn’t move much year-to-year.
HBAR’s numbers are determined from data supplied by builders and research firm Integra Realty Resources–Richmond.
Rounding out last year’s top 10 sales list were No. 5 Eagle Construction of VA ($107 million), No. 6 Eastwood Homes ($104 million), No. 7 StyleCraft Homes ($89 million), No. 8 RCI Builders ($74 million), No. 9 CraftMaster Homes ($67 million) and No. 10 Schell Brothers ($59 million). On the home closings list, StyleCraft place fifth with 202, Eastwood sixth with 193, Eagle seventh with 151, CraftMaster eighth with 132, D.R. Horton ninth with 104, and RCI 10th with 97.
| Top 2023 builders by $ volume: | Top 2023 builders by units: |
| 10: Schell Brothers: $59M | 10: RCI Builders: 97 homes |
| 9: CraftMaster: $67M | 9: DR Horton: 104 |
| 8: RCI Builders: $74M | 8: CraftMaster: 132 |
| 7: StyleCraft: $89M | 7: Eagle: 151 |
| 6: Eastwood: $105M | 6: Eastwood: 193 |
| 5: Eagle: $108M | 5: StyleCraft: 202 |
| 4: HHHunt Homes: $139M | 4: HHHunt Homes: 377 |
| 3: Stanley Martin: $182M | 3: Stanley Martin: 446 |
| 2: Main Street Homes: $246M | 2: Main Street Homes: 449 |
| 1: Ryan Homes: $383M | 1: Ryan Homes: 895 |
A tally of all of the builders on each list showed that sales volume among the top 10 totaled $1.45 billion in 2023, down from $1.5 billion in 2022 but above the $1.3 billion brought in in 2021. New home closings last year totaled 3,046, down from 3,246 in 2022 and 3,162 in 2021.
While the numbers appear to show a decline in productivity and sales among area builders, HBAR CEO Danna Markland said they do not reflect demand but rather a tipping point in the region’s available lot inventory.
Danna Markland
Developers and builders burned through their inventory through each of the previous three years, Markland said, adding that there is “an insufficient capacity of approved and feasible lots in the pipeline.”
“The deceleration of sales in 2023 has little to nothing to do with demand,” Markland said, adding that new-home sales numbers were strong last year compared to the years that preceded the pandemic and the abnormal numbers that came with it.
Markland said the deceleration of sales “should be a warning sign” as the region looks to up its workforce and economy.
“Businesses in the region talk about ‘workforce’ as a major barrier to growth. The workforce problem is a housing problem,” she said. “Unless we get more approved lots on the ground, the inventory pipeline will continue to decline, and with it so will housing availability. You know what that means, prices will climb.”
Of last year’s dip compared to previous years, Markland added, “I would say no one in the industry uses 2020, 2021 or 2022 as a barometer. Those years were a gift to the region’s economic growth. It begs the question: what happens to the war on talent when the pipeline gets too small?”
Correction: The top 10 builders based on sales volume and the total of those amounts were previously misreported. Schell Brothers ranked No. 10 on the list with $59 million, and the total tally with that amount included comes out to $1.45 billion.
Ryan and its cheap and basic “throwaway homes” has done more to denigrate the American suburban landscape than anything else.
Yet, by evidence of the photo of a particle-board tenement complex menacing over a highway offramp, other builders are not too far behind.
Darn, if only they had more space to blight.
What you see is hardy plank, not particle board. Hardy is a composite material which is basically concrete but looks like wood.
Unfortunately, under the facade is a tinderbox with no masonry and less-than-satisfactory sound isolation between the units.
People expect masonry AND affordability? Who is educating the college students these days? Probably they same people encouraging people to go to college and avoid the building trades. “Tinder-box” are you the same guy who used the word “Tenement”? If there is fireproof materials on the outside and inside, it doesn’t really matter what is within — there’s building codes. If it is hardy board on the outside, no rapid air circulation within and thick enough drywall, the interior of the walls could be filled with gasoline and we needn’t worry about a fire WITHIN the walls (but of course… Read more »
Hardie™️ is a replacement to vinyl siding. I’d bet that tower is DRYline sheathing (compressed cardboard) underneath.
It should be insulation material, but I can’t see what’s underneath. Cardboard wouldn’t provide insulation from anything.
Au contrair — it would provide some. Cardboard has air pockets.
Dryline Sheathing? I thought that was just housewrap??
Often. But much is a very high-quality particle board composite called Smartside, which really is smart — smarter than Hardy board.
They are both very durable.
But the inside subfloors and sheathing are usually particle board.
This is so melodramatic, they’re a bunch of anodyne houses that people call home. “Menacing” give me a break
They’re not a “bunch” of “houses”.
They’re cheap mass residence boxes looming over freeways and collector roads.
Anodyne? Stop throwing darts at your thesaurus.
It deserves better.
BTW, even prisoners can accurately call their cell home. Same with hobos and the overpass.
Man, you must’ve grown up in Versailles or something. I grew up in a 1500 sq ft 1920s single family house. The bedrooms were small with one window. Yet, when kids who lived in apts visited, they sometimes thought it was a “mansion” The house was built to cheap 1920s standards. No insulation (we blew some in in the early 1980s, the hole saw nearly twisted off my hand a few times) — in the 1950s, it was clad with Al siding, which was still there in the 2000 teens. The house was recently totally renovated, though it could’ve been… Read more »
This.
These people seem as if their secret motivation is to drive up the price of housing.
But I doubt that is the reality. The reality is likely something else.
I can smell the ideology through the text…. i could go through some basic construction facts, including that this isn’t your dad’s particle board (it is much better and just about the most dimentionally stable thing out there), but I will focus on your first claim: these homes are MUCH better than most of the Victory Homes built in the 1950s, and they are mostly still there, with un-updated wiring and insulation — and will remain there until they are torn down, mostly likely by outfits like Ryan Homes to build less-tiny-boxes made out of ticky-tacky or whatever. I say… Read more »
Laconism is a virtue
It is. But I will while I will not downvote this I also will not upvote this because TRUTH is also a vitue.
I can say “Puppies Bad” and it may be brief, but it is also not the soul of wit.
And I have a little bit of wisdom to send back atcha: Criticism of Style (or grammar, or typos) tends to be a transparent admission that they have lost the argument.
I see you also should accuse yourself of Thesaurus spelunking by the way!! I like both the words in question, so I won’t accuse you of bad word choice; I find it rather anodyne.
I once had a guy who worked for me who rented in a neighborhood of cheap little ranchers in Chesterfield who hated Ryan Homes. Why? Because they were buying up substandard-but-durable houses like the one he was renting and building bigger, better homes in their place. So, I am not sure the only thing Ryan has been doing is “Denigrating” — in this case, they were replacing the cheap and basic with things less cheap and basic. And why was this guy angry at Ryan, really? Because in his view they were taking away the single family homes he could… Read more »
Dana states the obvious: the shortage of housing will lead to further increases in prices of both for-sale and rentals, as well as heated competition for available talent. The main speaker at the event said if we magically had 12,000 new units appear across the region tomorrow, the demand would snap them up in six months. We have a housing crisis!
We do have a housing crisis, but we can also not build our way out of it with SF homes. They have gotten to be too expensive. They should be a component but this market (both in terms of demand and supply) has moved beyond them being the main new housing option.
You are correct if I add the word “only” to the statement about SFH. Single family housing has to be part of the mix because that is where the highest demand is, but you are touching on a huge problem — the COUNTIES around Richmond can’t afford to let single family houses be built in many cases unless they are huge, high quality, expensive ones. Millions wonder why we can’t build small and dense SFHs like we used to in the past. I am still not sure why this is other than maybe increased municipal demands — like all the… Read more »
Let’s parse through the histrionics:
“It begs the question: what happens to the war on talent when the pipeline gets too small?”
“Talent” does not wish to reside in yet another Ryan cookie-cutter brick veneer (front only) home straight out of ‘92.
Nor does “talent” wish to reside in a rather depressing $400k Stanley-Martin efficiency tower masquerading as “the perfect home… you’ve always envisioned…”
The “war on talent” is just another skirmish in Big Builder’s war against making thoughtful and desirable places worth caring about.
?????? Talent? Do you know any engineers????? I’ve known many my whole life — they often live in rather ugly spaces when they are young. They are always doing the math, not looking at color choices — and engineers are the kind of talent that matters most. I’ve visited a LOT of people in high demand in the Richmond area in all sorts of suburban environments and even I have wondered “why did they buy such a souless residence” — but they did and do, and they do it EVERYWHERE I guess b/c that is what is available. I guess… Read more »
Great Article Jonathan! Municipalities are struggling to keep up with the services needed for residential housing like schools, police, fire/rescue. Hence, no residential re-zonings. But, on the other side of the coin is the workforce. As stated in the article, quality companies need a quality workforce! So, the mentality of “live somewhere else” but come to our County to work and shop doesn’t work! Think about it, how far do you travel to work? How far do you travel to go to the grocery store? I bet if you travel more than 30 minutes for work, you certainly won’t travel… Read more »
Please define and provide an example of a quality community. Better yet, define a community. For modern era Big-Builders it is nothing more than a cheaply constructed place to sleep and watch Netflix in between punching the clock. Richmond does have some thoughtful and desirable communities with the best having been built previous to WWII. Libbie & Grove/Westhampton/Tuckahoe, Old Bon Air, Forest Hill, Museum District, etc. You’re correct. Quality communities are indeed lacking, but throwing up cheap, ugly, undesirable, disposable, and planned premature obsolescent residences (not communities) is not the answer. Because in 20-30 years, unlike the aforementioned communities I… Read more »
Think about the products that we buy compared to those manufactured in the 50s. Today’s products, in my opinion, have built-in obsolescence. Perhaps builders have the same strategy. After 20 years, bulldoze and build anew.
Planned obsolescence started during the Depression under FDR. Interesting history btw.
Your belief about building being part of that is totally untrue — the opposite is the reality — modern housing is more durable and more energy efficient.
OMG please. I remember when “nobody” wanted to live in all the little brick rancher neighborhoods right outside of the city and the little ticky tacky houses that weren’t even cape cods — now they are unaffordable to many — i guess because “no one” wants to live in them. And frankly, even these little cheap bungaloes are pretty easy to make really sweet if people have any handy skills and some time. Even if you are typing from Denmark or somewhere, I can likely make a counter-argument — many places that are deemed high quality communties (which seem to… Read more »
Shawn, you’d hold an interesting conversation for a cofffee or 3.
And I think I may need to make a half-apology, rereading what you are responding to, it seems I may have conflated a comment or three — usually I can keep commenters separate, but apparently not here. I think this was directed more toward some other people…
The day “housing” became commoditized.
Housing became commoditized the day people stopped building their own houses. And that was quite a long time ago
No, that would be commodification.
What we are witnessing is the end result off rampant commoditization where producers present the cheapest possible product in a sea of indistinguishable cheap products seeking to attract consumers by virtue of its cheapness (in relation).
The only expenditure of creativity is in the process of maximizing profit margin while maintaining low prices.
They don’t care to build homes or communities.
They care to sell human long-term parking spaces AKA housing.
In business-once your product is commoditized your business is doomed. The winner becomes the cheapest producer with the most volume.
Once a process was made to make Al cheaply, it didn’t become a lower quality metal even if interior designers stopped using it to make art deco chandelliers and handrails. Regarding housing, what we, for most people, WANT is commodification, not some bespoke products that no one can afford. Apparently, commas are free. A good example is my residence, the single family home I am typing in right now: It is made entirely from granite, it is unique because it is rumored to be built out of old infrastructure stone that was pulled up to make room for streetcar infrastructure… Read more »
The old Sears catalog homes comes to mind. Now Amazon is selling homes. lol. How about back when factories would build housing for their employees near the plant. After WWII the housing boom in the suburbs. Now they just stack them all together and on top of one another. When will the madness end? lol.
Madness? IDK, would you rather be a happy GMO person in Brave New World, or an angry crank living in a Montana cabin writing angry letters? How do we define madness? To me, what you are proposing seems crazy — it is like you are suggesting that we stop trying to make basic housing affordable to the maximum number of people to prioritize SOME other end. Which is what? Some aesthetic ideal? Some socio-economic (which are often themselves aesthetic, like, “we should all be quirky craftsmen honing our own hand-made knives!” like a lot of Ignatius J Reilly’s seem to… Read more »
Time for some “soma.”
Realistically my initial comment was more reactionary to society and things in general as I interpret the news , sometimes not based on the actual facts. I am in no way a part of the industry nor community planning or purchaser, just an observer and consumer of news of the world. “soma” make mine a double please.
Got it. I can partially relate. I spent much of my youth as a social critic, and I eventually saw that in some ways what I thought was a virtue was a partial vice. But I often think I need to just let people be wrong about things without comment, just like I’ve learned to let them have bad taste or spend their time watching too much television or eating unhealthy food or whatever. As someone who knows a bit about building, and a lot more about renovating, I know a lot about materials and also how tastes change, and… Read more »
I don’t expect anything I type to be popular because I usually don’t conform to either the two approaches that seem popular: Idealistic Complaining about Mediocrity (and usually calling it something worse than mediocrity) and Boosterism. I actually enjoy both though, and there is some very intelligent boosterism to be found here, it’s not just all out of a Sinclair Lewis novel, But one thing I have noticed about this thread — the unsubstanciated facts and highly opinioned claims about the homes in question goes almost completely unchallenged. For instance, the Hate here seems to be directed toward Ryan Homes,… Read more »