Try to get your mind around this one: Builders are victims of the housing glut.
Not all builders, of course. Just local, longtime firms that built homes mostly for people who planned to live in them.
Their livelihoods have been crippled by national and regional companies that flooded the market with thousands of new, unsold houses during the boom years — 2003 through 2006.
That's the claim of Dudley Hampton Jr., president of the Hernando Builders Association.
Is it true? Depends on which builder you ask.
"We're a third-generation local company,'' said Chris Glover, chief operating officer of Palmwood Builders. "We live and work in the community and our subs are all local.''
Sure, Palmwood built some spec homes — those with no buyer lined up — during the boom, he said. But the company also turned away customers in 2005 and 2006 because it knew it couldn't handle the bump in volume.
"It's somewhat of an insult that we're getting lumped in with Pulte (Homes) and Lennar (Homes) and the other big guys of the world,'' Glover said.
No, said Joe Pastore, owner of Pastore Custom Builders Inc.; small companies built fewer houses because they had less money, not because they had more scruples.
"What do you do if a person comes in and says he wants four houses? You sell them the houses,'' said Pastore, whose company was founded in 1984.
The demand was fueled by banks' lax lending practices, he said; both big and small builders responded to it.
Exactly right, said Gregg Carlson, regional president of Pittsburgh-based Maronda Homes, which put up more houses in the county between Jan. 1, 2003, and Dec. 31, 2006 — 1,245 — than any other company.
"When we were building a lot of houses in Hernando, we were selling a lot of houses in Hernando,'' Carlson said.
Me? I'd say Hampton has a point.
I have no sympathy for the county's largest builder, Hartland Homes, which built 379 houses during the boom years, most of them marketed to speculators.
But generally, I think businesses tend to act more responsibly if they must answer to neighbors rather than just stockholders. I also think local companies that grow up with a community are more likely to operate on a scale that fits its needs.
The second-largest builder in the county, Artistic Homes, built 363 houses in the entire four-year boom, and Pastore and Palmwood built fewer than 300. Lennar, meanwhile, built 470 in just 2005 and 2006.
This doesn't mean I favor the impact fee cut proposed by the builders association. I don't.
It means we should be cautious the next time a national or regional builder proposes a new development — not gleeful, as many real estate agents were during the boom.
The large builders' interest meant Hernando had hit the big time, some real estate agents said, and the companies' marketing power ensured long-term growth.
"We're getting national exposure like we haven't gotten since the Mackle brothers were selling houses to people in New York and Detroit," Brooksville real estate agent Gary Schraut said in 2005, referring to the developers of Spring Hill.
Exposure, at this point, feels a lot like exploitation.
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