Crown Communities, metro Atlanta’s largest home builder, is being acquired by the nation’s biggest home builder, a trade publication is reporting.
D.R. Horton is set to acquire the private Atlanta company, according to a report by Builder magazine. No one from either company returned Friday evening phone calls seeking comment.
Eugene James, Atlanta regional director of the housing information company Metrostudy — whose parent company owns the magazine that reported the news — said the acquisition puts the combined company in a strong position compared to competitors. Their combined market share will be more than double their nearest competitor.
“It gives D.R. Horton an enormous foothold on the Atlanta market,” James said.
At the end of the first quarter, Crown had 6.7 percent of all new home closings in metro Atlanta, while D.R. Horton had 5.9 percent market share. The number three builder, the private Peachtree Communities, had 5 percent. PulteGroup, the Michigan company that is moving its headquarters to Atlanta, was fourth, with 3.5 percent market share.
Crown took the top spot in metro Atlanta for the first time in 2013, said John Hunt, a senior analyst with real estate analysis firm Smart Numbers in Atlanta. D.R. Horton slipped to No. 2.
“It was No. 1 by a large margin,” he said. “It’s not two or three homes.”
New home closings in the region were up 55 percent in the first quarter, James said. D.R. Horton, based in Fort Worth, Texas, was the largest domestic home builder and the most geographically diverse as of last fall, according to data from Standard & Poor’s.
The Builder report said an announcement of the deal is imminent. Crown will run as an owned but separate company, it said.
D.R. Horton’s stock closed at $23.12 a share Friday.
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