Freehold Communities®

 

Freehold Communities is the nation’s most vibrant and forward-looking developer of master-planned communities, creating places where people want to live. Our developments are large-scale residential communities with thousands of homesites. Some also include build to rent, attractive retail and office components. They range from completely raw or not-yet entitled developments to communities with active home sales and thriving neighborhoods. We create Vital Communities that embrace healthy living, engagement, stewardship, and distinctive home design. As we evaluate opportunities, we use these four guiding principles to focus on the right planning, the right properties, and the right partners. We carefully consider each property to determine how to best maintain its beauty and character by selecting quality, creative builders who share our philosophy of offering niche solutions and unique, timeless designs.

Acquisition, Underwriting, & Capitalization

Sound Investments Create Prosperous Communities
Our investment philosophy places opportunity at the forefront and our teams’ decades-long track record of performing in-depth, robust, financial underwriting allows us to confidently assess the viability of new acquisitions and pioneer opportunity for our partners. We peel back each layer with comprehensive market analytics, meticulous development budgets, exhaustive property tax analysis, and savvy implementation of public and private financing mechanisms to maximize returns while developing financially sound, legacy communities.

Arden - Palm Beach County, FL

Vision and Planning

From Imagination to Creation
Freehold offers a fresh vision for building communities based on decades of valuable experience. After identifying a property for acquisition, our team engages the best third-party consumer researchers, project managers, and marketing experts. Evaluating and overseeing the project are executives with a long track record of success. With the participation of local land planners, landscape architects, civil engineers, architects, geotechnical and environmental engineers, the larger vision emerges. The result is an impressive physical design that is a natural expression of the land and the people who will live here.

Shearwater - St. Augustine, FL

Entitlement and Public Affairs

Good Neighbors Make Great Neighborhoods
The Freehold team expertly navigates local, state, and federal jurisdictional matters. They diligently manage every aspect of the entitlement process, from general-plan and zoning amendments to specific-plan and regulatory approvals, as well as creation of public financing districts. We also reach out to neighborhood groups, influentials, business leaders, and public representatives. And because we create healthy places that add value to surrounding communities, these groups respond with support as interests align. It’s not about understanding just the law, but also the hearts and minds of people who are proud to live in or near a Freehold Community.

Public Infrastructure Financing

New Roads To Success
Historically, governments have taken the lead in owning and operating facilities such as schools, roads, and utilities. Today’s political and business climate encourages us to explore partnerships with the public sector on infrastructure financing. While plans vary with agencies and states, an ideal public partnership may yield a finance vehicle that is mutually compatible. The result is a more robust development; one that improves infrastructure and accelerates its construction for the benefit of both the existing community and the new development.

Construction Management

Building On Strong Relationships
Creating successful communities efficiently requires precise management, intense coordination and proven organizational systems. We maintain frequent communication between project partners, consultants and contractors to make sure everyone is working together as effectively as possible. This happens at every phase of the process, including land acquisition, the hard-bid process, assembling contractor teams, the first shovel of dirt at groundbreaking, grand opening, association management, and lifestyle programing. Our passion for building vital places helps build trust among our financial partners, but also among our builders, planners, engineers, and public officials. They have come to expect Freehold Communities to deliver the best product in the right way — on budget, on time.

Orchard Ridge - Liberty Hill, TX

Marketing

Great Places Begin With What People Want
Because Freehold tailors its place-making to individual markets, our marketing approach is not an afterthought, but integral to the process from project inception. Whether it is research, branding, pricing, public relations, media planning, or advertising creative, our marketing efforts drive results. This includes the most effective social media and digital platforms, as well as more traditional tactics such as billboards and local sponsorships. In today’s market, the combination of these tools are crucial for reaching homebuyers, gaining valuable consumer information, and persuasively impacting home-buying decisions. Freehold’s comprehensive approach also uses psychographic and demographic research – both inside and outside of real estate. It tells us what people want from their community today and 10 years from today. We then build those expectations into our amenities. This connection makes us one of the most forward-thinking creators in the industry.

Headwaters - Dripping Springs, TX

Sales and Disposition

The Advantages Of Streamlining
Freehold has implemented a lot-sales system that maximizes absorption to benefit all parties including financial partners, sales teams, and builders. The system moves from disposition packages and term sheets, to negotiating purchase agreements to managing closing and post-closing payments. The goal throughout is to speed lots to market while achieving sales at desirable prices. Our detailed disposition information packages allow builders to make the most informed offers. They include underwriting information with convenient links to more comprehensive online due-diligence files. We segment product both by lot size and home size to maximize absorption. We also employ the same disposition team and standardized agreements across all markets resulting in more efficient negotiations where specific terms have previously been negotiated with familiar builders.

Reporting and Controls

Healthy Budgets: Measure Twice, Cut Once
Project budgets require careful attention and diligence. It starts with the most accurate forecasts available, which are crucial in building large-scale, long-term developments. Our skilled senior management team and local project teams then meet regularly to update schedules, budgets, and overall project financials. They study the prior quarter and make appropriate adjustments according to closely analyzed updates to project costs and revenues. This results in a real-time, accurate, and comprehensive financial model of the project.