Southern expansion pays off

When Sarasota homebuilder Pat Neal was scouting land in Lee and Collier counties in 2011, the recovery was far from a sure thing.

Foreclosures still swamped the Fort Myers and Naples areas, keeping many builders on the sidelines. But Neal Communities expanded into the region anyway, snapping up real estate at bargain prices in what Neal told the Business Observer then were “times of enormous opportunities.”

The bold move south proved prescient. Neal recently reported that it sold 182 homes in Lee and Collier counties last year, a 300% increase over 2013. Total volume in the two-county area in 2014 was $66 million with an average home price of $362,556.

The Lee and Collier dollar-sales volume represented nearly a quarter of Neal's total sales for 2014 of $276 million. Its 182 home sales represented 21% of the total 870 sales.