Close to home: Builder attributes fast growth to focus on local market

Homes By WestBay entered the single-family new homes market at the worst time imaginable. Yet a decade later, it's selling 500 homes a year.

By Brian Hartz
| 6:00 a.m. February 1, 2019
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Mark Wemple. Homes By WestBay president Willy Nunn has overseen rapid growth at the Riverview-based homebuilder.

Strategies

Willy Nunn probably should have known better than to hitch his wagon to a new homebuilding company in October 2009.

“It’s what we like to refer to as the darkest part of the night,” says the 53-year-old president of Homes by WestBay, recalling the economic downturn that brought the residential real estate market to a halt nationwide.

A decade later, though, Nunn’s decision looks decidedly less questionable. By carving out a niche and sticking to it, Riverview-based, privately held Homes By WestBay is one of the fastest-growing builders in the Tampa Bay region, with revenue rising 52.2% since 2015, from $127.78 million to $194.55 million in 2017. More growth? Nunn projects the company will be just under $250 million in sales for 2018.