Our History
Universal Homes was formed in 1952 by the Anderson Family in Phoenix, Arizona. Between 1952 and 1985, when the Company was sold to its current owners, the Company focused on constructing single family, attached and detached homes in Glendale, Mesa, Phoenix, and Scottsdale, Arizona. Both the attached and detached products were generally semi-custom homes with the detached product constructed on larger lots (12,000+ sf)
In 1985, the Anderson family sold its interests in Universal Homes to the Contadino family. Universal Homes was added to other Contadino Family home building (Coventry Homes) and mortgage banking (Fairmount Mortgage) companies. Between 1985 and 1990, Universal Homes continued to build higher end, semi custom homes while Coventry Homes maintained a separate market niche of more moderately priced homes.
On December 31, 1990, the Contadino Family sold Coventry Homes and Fairmount Mortgage to the Del Webb Corporation. Contadino, and his management team, joined Del Webb Corporation to begin its non-active adult community development business. At that time, Universal Homes suspended its homebuilding activities.
Between 1991 and 1997, Del Webb’s Coventry Homes, under Contadino’s leadership as Executive Vice President of the Del Webb Corporation, grew the business to include home building operations in Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona, Orange County, California and Las Vegas, Nevada, with new home deliveries exceeding 2,000 homes per year.
In 1998, Contadino resigned his positions with the Del Webb Corporation and reactivated Universal Homes. The Contadino Family teamed up with the Fain Family in Prescott Valley, Arizona, to undertake the conception, design, and development of a 1,200 acre parcel of land to be known as the Granville Master Planned Community in Prescott Valley, Arizona. This entity, under the direction of myself, initiated development of the master plan in October, 2001. From the Master Planned Community’s inception, Universal Homes has both purchased improved lots and semi-developed parcels from Granville Development Company, and offered a variety of housing products and amenities.
Beginning in 2007, the Home Building industry across the United States began what can best be described as the most serious downturn in new home construction since records have been kept. Thousands of land developers, master plan community developers, and home builders have been forced out of business. New home building permits in almost every municipality in the Country literally came to a stop. Absolutely every home builder in the Country has been negatively impacted by these events. Management’s 38-year history in new home construction throughout the Southwest, has experienced the significant volatility in new home construction. Management was aware that the 2004 – 2006 run-up had to be short-term in nature, and there would be a severe downturn as a result of all of the over-building.
Universal Homes has, and will continue to operate, without the threat of foreclosure or lack of financing. The reasons for this position are numerous. During the boom home building years of 2004 – 2006, the Company took steps that positioned the Company to survive the severe downturn in real estate activity. Management recognized that the extreme inflation coupled with the unsustainable demand for housing that was to be “flipped” had to be short-term in nature and the result would be a large inventory of unoccupied homes on the market competing with the home builder.
During these times, Universal Homes established policies to eliminate investor home sales where the buyer had no intention of occupying our home as a resident, and only sought to resell at a higher price upon the completion of construction. In addition, Universal Homes, while focusing on its home buyer residents, refused to escalate prices to take full advantage of the new home buying frenzy. At the same time, the company limited its borrowing from financial institutions to only those amounts deemed appropriate for new home construction activity.
Today, the Granville community has experienced significantly fewer foreclosures than those communities that catered to the investors during the years 2004 – 2006. As a consequence, the decline in home values in Granville is also significantly less. The Company operates today with literally the same group of managers and employees that worked with the company during the boom times. We have adjusted our operating costs to reflect the times and are fully committed to building new homes as the market recovers from this latest cycle.
