Florida Home Builder Thrives in Slow Market

At a time when several small- to medium-sized regional home builders have hit rough patches or folded, a Bradenton home builder to have weathered the great storm of Florida real estate’s downturn.

Albert Sanchez, Gibraltar Homes’ president and owner, sees an improving housing market ahead. He thinks places like Lakewood Ranch, where he is building single-family homes, will continue to be desirable.

Gibraltar also is building at Bougainvillea Place, a private, gated enclave in Ellenton featuring 160 luxury villas and town homes.

And the company is building custom bayfront residents and villas at Legends Bay at IMG Academies in Bradenton and will start construction on a new community of 60 luxury homes in the same development.

Sanchez also has been putting his money where his mouth is, reflecting his belief in an improving Southwest Florida housing market.

Following the lead of other home builders, he is constructing a three-story headquarters at Lakewood Ranch and opening a 3,500-square-foot studio.

“We’re very confident in this area’s housing market and are moving ahead with our company’s building and development strategies accordingly,” said Sanchez, a Sarasota native and a Riverview High graduate who “never left except for college and law school at the University of Florida.”

Deciding that tax law was not his bag, Sanchez founded Gibraltar in 1995 with partner Jerry Blumberg.

Sanchez says that he avoided the pitfalls of other home builders by “not building spec homes and being very careful about the land positions we acquired in 2004 and 2005.”

In short, he bypassed deals that required high leverage and expensive dirt, and catered to buyers more or less immune from Florida mortgage problems.

Regardless, Gibraltar was buffeted by the perfect storm of 2006-07 but withstood, although it dropped its employee head count from 45 to 25 and sales fell from about $35 million in 2005 to the “mid-$20s” in 2006.

Whereas Gibraltar built 70 homes in 2005, last year it built about 19, although for a higher average home price.

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