Highlights:
Perrin’s Ridge in Wheat Ridge by Thrive sold twice as fast as projected.
Energy-efficiency responsible for Perrin’s Ridge success.
Thrive Home Builders, formerly New Town Builders, received DOE award for Perrin’s Ridge
Perrin’s Row in Wheat Ridge was recently given an award by the DOE. Perrin’s Ridge was built by New Town Builders, now called Thrive Home Builders.
Thrive Home Builders, the new name for New Town Builders, is “just wrapping up,” on the last eight homes at Perrin’s Ridge in Wheat Ridge, said the Denver’s company CEO and founder, Gene Myers.
But all 26 homes along West 38th Avenue and Depew Street, have long been spoken for by mostly millennial buyers eager to snap-up the super-energy efficient homes.
“We thought we would sell an average of two a month and we would be completely sold out in two years,” said Myers.
“We ended selling out within a year,” said Myers, who renamed his 15-year-old company Thrive Home Builders to better reflect its mission of building not only sustainable, energy-efficient homes, but also those that reflect the growing “healthy home” movement, which will do things such as provide better air quality in the houses it builds. For example, most new Thrive meet the United States EPA’s stringent Indoor airPLUS standards
Myers said he believes a strong selling point at Perrin’s Ridge was that the “net zero” homes were so energy-efficient, even though at a selling price around $220 per square foot, “they were selling for substantially over what surrounding home sell for,” Myers said.
The home range in size from about 1,100 square feet to almost 1,600 square feet.
“I can’t remember the sales price,” Myers said, but at $220 per square foot, the homes would start at about $242,000.
“I think we sold our first pre-construction homes at around $180 per square foot and moved up to $220, Myers said.
Myers said they survey their customers and found that energy efficiency ranked very high with buyers.
“Almost everybody who bought at Perrin’s Row was young and energy efficiency is very important to millennials,” Myers said.
Earlier this month, the Department of Energy gave Thrive a Housing Innovation Award for the Row Homes at Perrin’s Row in its Multifamily category. The only other Colorado builder to win an award was Mantell-Hecathorn Builders, based in Durango. It won in the Custom category, but did not win the Grand Award.
The award was given at the recent Energy and Environmental Building Alliance’s Conference in Denver.
Perrin’s Row, built by what is now called Thrive Home Builders, includes solar panels.
Thrive Home Builders is the nation’s first homebuilder to win a Grand Award for three consecutive years from the DOE. Previously Thrive, then called New Town, won Grand Awards in 2013 and 2014 for homes it built in Stapleton.
The Net Zero homes, which include rooftop solar panels, have the ability to generate as much energy as they use. The homes also include thickly packed insulation in the walls and ceilings, as well as Energy Star appliances.
The townhomes were built to the rigorous energy efficiency requirements of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Zero Energy Ready Home program, according to DOE. This marked the first town home project certified to the DOE Zero Energy Ready Home program, but the builder in the past had built more than 68 single-family homes to the DOE Zero Energy Ready Home program since joining the program in 2012.
A two-bedroom, two-bath, 1,457-squrae-foot home is expected to save their home owners almost $700 per year in energy bills and should achieve Home Energy Rating System (HERS) score of 28, with the 3.0-kW solar photovoltaic system.
“Wheat Ridge is honored that Thrive Home Builders selected our community to build these homes,” said Wheat Ridge Mayor Joyce Jay.
She said the fast-paced sales at Perrin’s Row “shows the quality of these homes and the popularity of Wheat Ridge. It’s been a great partnership.”
Myers said that Perrin’s Ridge not only benefitted from its energy efficiency, but also from being minutes from Denver neighborhoods such as West Highland, Berkeley, Sloan’s Lake and even Jefferson Park.
“It was a bit of a risk going to Wheat Ridge at this price point, but we looked at the densification of West Highland, and while we were charging significantly more than surrounding homes in Wheat Ridge, new homes in places like West Highland are selling for substantially more,” Myers said.
“It was sort of a gut decision and it paid off,” he said.
This is the type of energy savings a buyer of a Net Zero house by Thrive Home Builders can expect.
He’s going to keep raising the bar on not only energy-efficiency, but wellness.
“We look at every home as a stepping stone that brings us to the next level,” Myers said.
“Perrin’s Ridge was a stepping stone and our next project in Lone Tree will be a step beyond Perrin’s Ridge,” he said.
For example, the Lone Tree units, which start at $326,950, will include a very environmentally friendly insulation made by Owens Corning.
“The guys at Owens Corning told me this is the biggest advance in insulation in 70 years,” Myers said.
“It is not your father’s insulation,” Myers said. “You could rub it on your bare shoulder and it won’t itch.”
The insulation, he said, is much preferable to the spray foam “that is all in vogue today” made with oil-based products, he said.
Myers said a typical buyer of one his homes is a woman in her 30s, who drives a Prius and has a “Boulder sensibility.”
Myers said a buyer of one of his homes cares not only about saving energy, but what she puts in her body.
“She knows more about the ingredients in the cereal she has for breakfast than the ingredients in her house,” he said.
His idea, he said, is to print a menu of not what is in his homes, but what is not in them.
“For example, we will let buyers know that our homes don’t have VOCs from solvents and paints and our homes are formaldehyde free,” Myers said.
And because of the tight construction as part of building an energy-efficient homes, he said he will use systems to bring in more fresh air to the houses, he builds.
Workers blow-in insulation in Perrin’s Row’s walls, Perrin’s Row, built what is now Thrive Home Builders, recently won a DOE award.
“Our homes “breathe” at a molecular level,” Myers said.
Myers said he expects Thrive will win another DOE award next year.
“I’m going to make it very difficult for the DOE to not give us another Grand Award in 2016,” Myers said.
In fact, builders that hope to best Thrive will really need to raise the bar, he said.
“I think as a small builder, we really have to differentiate ourselves from the big builders that sell their homes largely based on value,” Myers said.
“I’m not saying our homes are for everyone, but for people who care about things like saving energy and living in a healthy home, we’re pretty hard to beat.”
Interested in buying a home in Wheat Ridge. Please visit COhomefinder.com.
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