Dive summary:

• Brandywine Homes, which has made its mark building single-family homes in southern California, plans to break ground in January on its first multifamily-housing project as a way to move its financial eggs into at least one other basket.
• The 25-unit townhouse-style apartment development in Garden Grove is the builder's first foray into building and owning rental properties, a move that President Brett Whitehead said is driven by the lesson of wishing to have had income-producing properties during the construction downturn.
• The time seems right, Dave Barisic, vice president for sales and marketing said, because the demand for rental units remains high as residents are unready or still unable to get into or back into owning.

From the article:

"One thing we learned over the downturn was that diversifying can never hurt, and it would have been a lot more comfortable over the past five years if we would have had some sort of income-producing property in our portfolio," Brett Whitehead, president, Brandywine, says. ...