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The recession, and the carnage it brought to the homebuilding industry, forced Jeff Eslinger to shutter his family-run new-home construction firm in 2009.
Founded in 1976 by Eslinger's father, D. James Eslinger, the firm, Eslinger Homes, built up to 60 houses a year in the Sarasota-Manatee region at its peak. Jeff Eslinger ran the business with two of his siblings for a time, until they decided to shut down when new-home sales tanked.
More than five years later, Eslinger, a past president of the Sarasota Homebuilders Association, is finally back in the business. He was recently named director of sales and marketing for the residential homebuilding division at Sarasota-based Jackson & Associates. The general contracting firm wants in on the current homebuilding market rebound.
Eslinger, also a onetime board member at the Manatee Homebuilders Association, says he looked around the region for the right company to work for since at least 2012. Eslinger has been friends with Tom and Nancee Jackson with Jackson & Associates for 25 years, and that got the conversation going. “I'd been looking for an opportunity to get back into the homebuilding business,” Eslinger tells Coffee Talk. “I'm excited to be back.”
Founded in 1991, Jackson & Associates has a notable history of commercial sector construction, with projects from government work and churches to restaurants, banks and office buildings. The firm has also built custom homes and operates a renovation and repair division for the residential market. But Eslinger will lead the company's first foray into full-service homebuilding, with models starting at the $300,000 price level.
The company's first model under Eslinger is in Bougainvillea Place, a gated, maintenance-free community in Ellenton, in north Manatee County. Eslinger says he's looking at two or three other opportunities in the Sarasota-Bradenton region for new home projects. “People have really jumped back into the market,” Eslinger says. “I think we've turned the corner.”
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