Trumark buys 159 lots in RainDance

WINDSOR — Trumark Homes has bought 159 lots in RainDance.

A press release said homes are near the Fred Funk-designed golf course scheduled to open in July.

Trumark Colorado division president Scott Davis told BizWest 11 of the lots are on the course. The deal is the second in the state for California-based Trumark. Its first was also with Windsor developer Martin Lind, when it took 59 lots in Pelican Shores, a lakefront enclave in Water Valley.

Homes in Pelican Shores will  run 2,200 to 3,750 square feet and start in the $700,000 to $900,000 range, Davis said, with eight homes on the lake nearer to $1.25 million. Models go up in January.

RainDance homes are similarly priced and sized — 2,100 to 4,400 square feet, he said. Models will be available in March.

Both of its communities are aimed at move-up buyers, Davis said — “people who have owned a home in the last two and a half years and have a lot of equity” — but it’s a different move-up for each.

Pelican Shores is a “lock and leave, low-to-no maintenance, seasonal lifestyle” part-time resident. These are “active boomers … semi-retired, mobile businesspeople,” living some of the year near adult children and grandkids. RainDance buyers still have families in-house, he said, a demographic that Pelican Shores purchasers want to be near.

“We started looking at the positioning and how they would complement each other,” Davis said. “‘Where do Millennials and Active Boomers meet?”

He said homes are trending smaller as well with people preferring experiences over excess.

“We’re spending more time in our houses” after COVID, Davis said, “and [a home] needs to be able to accomplish different things. It’s a lot of people in a smaller space.”

RainDance lots were deeper than normal and “that extra 10 feet or so” offered architects “some opportunities in design.”

Trumark’s designer is Woodley Architectural Group in Littleton.

Conversation

Davis and Lind began in December to discuss Trumark buying lots.

The two have known each other since 2008, when Davis headed D.R. Horton operations in the state. Davis ran Horton here for 11 years, growing its annual housing starts to about 1,000 a year, good for “second-largest builder along the North Front Range.”

These included Horton speaking for “a couple hundred lots” over time with Water Valley Co.

A thousand homes a year is also Trumark’s aim in Colorado, mostly along the Front Range. He said this is largely “Fort Collins to Colorado Springs [and] everyone wants to be in Douglas County.”

Davis said he came to respect Lind in the years after the Great Recession.

“There were too many finished lots and not enough demand,” he said. “That was the bloodbath.”

Coming out of those years, “We’ve collaborated well together.”

Davis noted Lind’s ability consistently to “execute on the development — that’s rare: delivering the lots.”

Davis also cited the increasingly creative roster of amenities at Lind’s projects: orchards, water features, sports medicine, restaurants. “He layered in the zipline … a snow hill for sledding.”

It’s “money and creativity and energy … he has a very creative mind,” Davis said.

“And even with COVID you could still play golf.”

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