After the Storm: homebuilders have had to adapt to survive.

• Author: Lewis, David
• Position: WHO OWNS colorado

SOCIAL DARWINISM--SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST AND ALL THAT is way out to fashion these days and pretty well totally un-PC, but folks who follow Colorado homebuilders still find good reason to turn to the Great Man for explanation.

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No, we do not refer to his famous quotation that, "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change," which it appears Charles Darwin never said anyhow.

We refer to his scientifically irrefutable statement that, "An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men."

Actually both quotes help explain homebuilders today, especially independent homebuilders.

We Darwinians are pleased to be able to report that we have changed our classification of Colorado's homebuilders, upgrading the status of the relatively few of them remaining in business to "threatened" from our earlier assessment of them as "endangered."

"We peaked out in the mid-2000s at about 200 houses a year; last year we placed about 40," says Gene Myers, CEO of Denver-based New Town Builders. "We've certainly not been immune to the greater forces of the market."

The important point, though, is that New Town Builders survived to build another day.

"To put it into perspective, the average year for Denver over the last 10 years has been about 17,000 starts, and we did under 4,000 starts last year. That's a dramatic shrinking of the market," Myers says.

Even congenitally optimistic real estate pros, builders included, have been tested by this lingering downturn.

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The housing recession "has been almost as hard on us as it has been on anybody else," says Michael Hart, co-owner and sales and marketing vice president of Westminster-based Wonderland Homes. "I say, 'almost,' because a number of companies haven't survived. We have."

Staying in the black as you steer your business through the economic Storm of the Century is no mean feat.

"Our starts and closings were relatively flat last year; however, we were able to grow our revenue by 14 percent through a shift in the mix of product that we sold," says Matt Mandino, president of giant Bloomfield Hills, Mich.-based PulteGroup Inc.'s Colorado division.

"Additionally, we saw a benefit from placing a greater emphasis on selling the options that our customers desired to have in their homes. This approach, along with...