Dive Insight:
Warmington Residential, based in Costa Mesa, California, raised revenue by 65% last year, and part of that is the result of a strategy of not trying to beat large builders at their game and playing its own game instead.
One example is a recession strategy in which Warmington looked at builders that were cutting prices on already-built houses, looked at what the market wanted, and found it could have a niche to itself by building one-story houses that emphasized connectedness with the outdoors, which was a growing demand.
In the land market, President and CEO Jim Warmington of the family owned Warmington group, said, the company has found that it can deliver housing where it finds demand by working with land that might require assembling parcels or doing environmental cleanup that a conventional strategy would avoid.
Dive Insight:
Warmington's 2013 revenue was $123.5 million. The company closed sales on 623 housing units, which was more than twice as many as in 2012. The company began as a builder in 1926, but it now has its own design arm, Château Interiors & Design, which offers some synergies, and it has an arm called Studio Chateau, which provides support for interior design by a number of builders.
