Two land purchases in Queen Creek and Mesa total $5.9 million

PHOENIX, Arizona – Maracay Homes, a wholly owned company of the TRI Pointe Group (NYSE: TPH), closed on two land purchases in Phoenix’s East Valley this month, totaling approximately $5.9 million.

The parcels, located in Queen Creek and Mesa, will be developed into new, single-family home neighborhoods scheduled to open in late 2018, said Jason Weber, Maracay Homes’ vice president of land acquisitions and development.

In Mesa, Maracay paid $3.67 million to buy the land for 53 additional homesites in the Eastmark master-planned community, near Ellsworth and Ray roads. The Arizona homebuilder also posted a letter of credit for an additional $1.57 million in development to buy the guaranteed finished homesites. Maracay has a long-standing presence in the five-square-mile community of Eastmark, which is one of the top selling master-planned communities in America, according to a 2017 mid-year report released by real estate advisory firm RCLCO.

Nathan & Associates brokered the transaction between Maracay and the seller, DMB Mesa Proving Grounds, LLC, an entity owned by DMB. Homes built on the 8,100-square-foot homesites will range from 2,300 to 3,900 square feet.

Meanwhile, in Queen Creek, Maracay Homes closed on 38 homesites at Highland Vistas, a 19.4-acre, gated subdivision located at the northwest corner of Hunt Highway and 172^nd Street. Maracay paid $2.2 million to buy the pre-platted homesites, each averaging about 11,200 square feet. Ryan Willis Properties brokered the transaction between Maracay and the seller, Diamond G Holdings, LLC, an entity owned by investor Kip Gilleland. Residences are expected to range in size from 2,990 to 3,450 square feet.

“We talk about the importance of prime location when buying a new home and what it means to truly love where you live. The East Valley hits the mark on all levels,” said Weber. “It not only offers highly rated schools and some of the world’s top employers – including Intel, General Dynamics, Microchip and The Boeing Company – it also features quality shopping and dining, world-class entertainment, and access to excellent outdoor recreation.”

The East Valley also rests near one of the largest and most efficient airports in the country, offering easy access to Talking Stick Arena and Chase Field and boasts more than 300 days of sunshine per year. “It’s a great place to call home,” Weber said.

PHOENIX, Arizona – Sunbelt Investment Holdings, Inc. (SIHI), a privately held and family-owned real estate company with roots in Germany, is making a name for itself as one of the top commercial landowners in the East Valley through its continued investment in Mesa, the 36th largest city by population in the U.S.

SIHI has acquired seven large properties in Mesa over the last decade, totaling over 1,000-acres, and is currently pursuing additional sites for commercial and industrial development. “SIHI believes that there is a great potential for business and population growth in Mesa, and through future land and building development we plan to be a prominent player in the marketplace” said Todd Holzer, SIHI president. SIHI has significant land holdings near Mesa Gateway Airport, which are primed for commercial, industrial and retail development.

A recent SIHI transaction includes a 27-acre sale to Niagara Bottling Company in Mesa’s Elliot Road Technology Corridor. Niagara is currently building a 450,000-square-foot facility.

According to Bill Jabjiniak, the City of Mesa’s economic development director, Mesa is experiencing the highest amount of land development that it has seen in the last nine years because of “access to skilled labor, transportation corridors, the City’s infrastructure investment, as well as the abundance of vacant land and competitive land costs.”

“Mesa prefers to partner closely with companies at the early stages of development to ensure the best use of properties for developers and the city,” said Jabjiniak. “We have a strong relationship with Sunbelt Investment Holdings and often promote SIHI properties to companies considering locating in Mesa.”

Holzer, who has more than three decades of experience in real estate development within Arizona, including OPUS, DeRito Partners and Ryan Companies, notes that SIHI owns and self-manages 3.5 million square feet of retail shopping centers in Arizona and California. The company’s affiliate is Metropolis Investment Holdings Inc., which also owns five large office towers and adjacent mixed use development sites in major central business districts throughout the U.S.

SIHI also owns 232-acres in four large properties in the West Valley and is currently under contract to purchase an additional 68-acre parcel for industrial development. With all of its activity, SIHI recently purchased an office building in Midtown, and will open the Phoenix office in Q3 2017.

A joint study compiled by PropertyShark and RENTCafé examined how the gender pay gap translates into a gender gap in the housing market by comparing home prices and rents across the 50 largest cities in the US to the average incomes of both genders. It found that in 9 of these cities single men can afford to buy a home, while women cannot, including Chicago, Seattle, and Denver.

Even more, 14 cities have completely locked out all singles looking to buy or rent. There’s good news however for singles who want to live on their own as 26 cities are still affordable, and Tucson housing ranked 7th most affordable city for single women when it comes to buying a home.  

The monthly mortgage payment here would take 16% of a single woman’s income, though renting is out of reach without being burdened, the monthly rent accounting for 37.4% of total income.

The best cities to buy in for both genders
There’s also good news out there. In just over half of the cities analyzed the average one-bedroom or studio apartment is still affordable for single people of both genders. Even pricey California offers would-be home buyers a refuge in Fresno, where both men and women would have to spend less than 20% of their monthly income on mortgage – a rate unheard of elsewhere in the state.

Urban Texas fares pretty well, by comparison. Mortgage payments on small apartments in Dallas, El Paso, San Antonio and Arlington are within budget for single-person households. However, home prices in Texas have been rising fast over the past year, and Dallas is starting to look extra-costly for single women, who currently have to pay an average of 29% of their income if they wish to own a one-bedroom or studio apartment.

Some of the lowest costs of housing can be found in Wichita and Indianapolis – single women here pay an average of 10% of their income on mortgage. Several other Midwestern cities give a green light to single women buyers – Minneapolis, Omaha, Kansas City and Columbus – as do Baltimore, Virginia Beach and Jacksonville on the East Coast.

Atlanta remains affordable to both genders, though barely – women pay a full 30% of their income on mortgage. However, the pay gap here is wide, with women making $10,000 less than men on average.

Las Vegas and the three largest cities in Arizona – Phoenix, Tucson and Mesa – also score well on gender equality, and have home prices that are balanced with the income levels of both men and women. As elsewhere, though, the larger the city the higher home prices go, while income doesn’t rise as fast – therefore, residents of Phoenix and Las Vegas pay proportionally more on housing than those living in smaller cities, whatever their gender.

Methodology:
Home prices were based on median asking prices for starter homes (studios and one-bedrooms). Average monthly payments were calculated on the assumption of a standard 30-year mortgage, with a 20% down payment and a fixed yearly interest rate of 4%. We defined affordability in the starter-home market based on the industry standard that sets the upper limit on monthly mortgage payments at 30% of monthly income. Everything above this threshold was labeled unaffordable.

Median rents on starter units in each city were compiled by RENTCafé using data provided by sister company Yardi Matrix – an apartment market intelligence source which researches and reports on all multifamily properties of 50+ units across 124 markets in the United States. Rental rate coverage is for market rate properties only. Fully affordable properties are not included in the Yardi Matrix rental surveys and are not reported in rental rate averages.

Data on median incomes for men and women comes from the US Census Bureau database for 2015. The analysis was of the top 50 largest cities in the US, excluding St. Louis where incomplete data on rents and home prices was found.

See full study here.