Lennar was Minnesota's top builder last year. Again. In fact, the company has led the list for the past six years based on total sales volume, according to an annual poll by the Builders Association of the Twin Cities. The company reported gross revenues $113.7 million for 312 total housing units closed during 2011 calendar.
Here's the rest of the list:
- The Pulte Group (marketing homes under both Pulte Homes and Centex Homes) with almost $80 million in revenue and 239 housing units closed.
- D.R. Horton- Minnesota with $65.2 million revenue and 227 housing units.
- Ryland Homes with revenue of almost $54 million and 190 units.
- Mattamy Homes at $45.4 million and 160 units.
Despite the housing downturn Lennar expanded its dominance by increasing its revenues by nearly 10 percent between 2010 and 2011. Both Pulte and DR Horton saw their revenues during that period contract. Still, all of the top-5 ranked builders held the same ranking as they did in both 2009 and 2010, and are national firms with corporate offices located outside of Minnesota.
The numbers highlight a long-term trend in the Twin Cities towards domination by big national builders. Historically the Twin Cities was a market dominated by large, locally based home builders. Many of them were family-owned companies. As the market has grown, however, many of those companies were either acquired by big nationals, or didn't make it through the downturn.
One of the most devastating symbols of the downturn was the collapse of Rottlund Homes, which went out of business late last year after nearly 40 years of building houses in Minnesota. For decades it was a family owned company, but went through a series of expansions and ownership changes before succumbing to the housing crash. The biggest Twin Cities-based builders were Capstone, Hanson, LDK, Charles Cudd, De Novo and Keyland.
