Atlanta area builders try to shelter themselves through economic storm

“This is not necessarily a bad thing,” he said of the dramatic decline. “We never should have been building as much as we were.”

James said he’d like to see starts top out around 35,000 a year in the future, not in the 60,000 range of 2006. The current 12- month rolling average is 5,728 starts, he said.

“In 2000-2001 we were right around 35,000 starts and that seemed to be a good level,” he said. “I think we could handle that nicely.”

How builders from the metro area have adapted to these steep and rapid changes varies as widely as floor plans. Many area homebuilders, large and small, have been forced out of business over the past three years. It seems impossible to say exactly how many builders have been shuttered, as some quietly closed their doors without filing bankruptcy, and others made public announcements. Those remaining have scaled back, working with skeleton crews, picking up jobs in renovation and repair where they could. Here are the stories of three builders and how they are making it through this slow building period.

Roger Keeling, chief executive officer, HB International and Hunter Blair, Inc.

When times got tough for Alpharetta-based builder Hunter Blair Inc., its chief executive, Roger Keeling, left the country -- not to hide, but to build. Hunter Blair, builders in the Manor Golf and Country Club and Ardsley Park in Windward, once built four to six homes a year. Now they're down to none.

"We were prepared to drop to two or so, but we were not ready for the phone to stop ringing altogether," Keeling said.

Keeling saw opportunities in other countries to build resort- and vacation-style properties as the housing market in Atlanta, and across the U.S., was crumbling.

“This is how we’ve managed to keep the doors open in Atlanta,” he said in a phone interview. “We’re really open in name only, but we’re open.”

Keeling opened an office in Nicaragua, where the company purchased eight acres of beachfront property in a massive resort community.

“This is a money generator for us, but not yet a money maker,” he said. “Our funding in Nicaragua allows us to pay some bills in Atlanta when we need to.”

Keeling said that if he hadn't moved to Nicaragua and started building there, his Atlanta-based business would likely be out of business now.

“We’ve had some really tough times,” he said. “But I hope this move will allow us to stay in the Atlanta area for a long time. We want to be there for the people we’ve built for and those who might want us to build for them in the future.”

Tony Perry, former chief executive officer, Oakwood Homes

At the beginning of 2007, Tony Perry and Oakwood Homes were on top of the world. By the end of that year, the company was bankrupt and Perry was looking for a new line of work.

“We were the lead builder on the ‘Extreme Makeover' home up in Lake Arrowhead that year,” Perry said. “We were doing a couple hundred homes a year. Things couldn’t have been better.”

Perry said work was flowing in as if through a wide-open faucet; but by mid-2007, “Somebody turned off the faucet.” By December, the company had spent more than $3 million trying to manage the unfinished projects and keep the bills paid.

“It wasn’t enough and we ran out of money,” he said. “We just couldn’t keep the doors open.”

Perry became a subcontractor for an independent energy company. He’s been doing that for nearly three years, but he never gave up on a return to homebuilding.

After getting a loan from his parents, Perry is building his first home in three years. He is moving slowly and hoping this home is the first step in getting back into the business.

“We’re building this one to sell, and we will see how that goes.”

Warren Sirzyk, president, Renaissance Development Corp.

Warren Sirzyk considers 30-year-old Renaissance Development“one of the fortunate ones.” The Marietta-based custom homebuilder is still in the building business. But staying in hasn’t been easy, Sirzyk said. In a good year, he said, they might build six to 10 homes. This year, they will finish with two.

“We’ve definitely had to cut back,” he said. “We used to do around 50 percent spec building and 50 custom orders, and that has surely changed.”

Another major change was lowering the threshold on renovation work.

“We’ve always done renovation work, but we used to not take jobs under a certain dollar amount,” he said. “We had to lower that amount to make sure we could keep that segment of the business going.”

Sirzyk said he’s also been using his expertise as a civil engineer to keep business moving.

“I’ve been doing a lot more consulting as an engineer,” he said. “I’ve also been out in the field a lot more, where I would usually be out bringing in new business.”

Before the market troubles began, Sirzyk planned to get into the second-home business, but he put that on hold along with spec building.

“We used to have around 15 projects a year,” he said. “[It was] a combination of home-builds and renovations. But the building has, of course, slowed down.”

Sirzyk believes the market will turn around, but like most in the industry he said he couldn’t venture a guess as to when.

“I’ve got a son who is working on a master’s degree and has aspirations of getting into the business,” he said. “I want the environment to change so he can do well.”