Mr. Labovitz: The company was founded in 1985 by Christopher Clemente, focused on semi-custom homebuilding and real estate development in the Northern Virginia suburbs of the Washington, DC, area. The company grew over time. In 1992, Greg Benson joined the company as President, having left one of the large public homebuilders to help expand the business into the production homebuilding area. The company expanded into Raleigh in 1997 and, in December 2004, the company executed the IPO. During the course of 2005, we continued to expand throughout the Washington, DC, area. As we entered 2006, the company began to execute on its strategy of expanding geographically throughout the Southeastern United States by acquiring Parker Chandler Homes in Atlanta and Capitol Homes in Raleigh, North Carolina, which gives us now a presence in five markets: the Washington, DC, area; the Atlanta, Georgia metropolitan area; Raleigh, North Carolina; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
TWST: You mentioned going into production homebuilding and the semi-
custom. Is there a sharp difference between the two and also what is
advantage of working at the production level?
Mr. Labovitz: There is a sharp difference between the two. As a
production homebuilder, we were focused on finished lot options, buying
finished lots from developers on which we were able to put up production
style homes, where you have a master plan for homes and you're
replicating that plan with minor modification. In a custom building
environment, you're building to specific customer specifications with
each house. So, as a production homebuilder, you get the benefit of
repetitive manufacturing, you get the benefit of buying in volume for
more standard types of manufacturing. I should also add that in the
early part of 2000, the company expanded beyond the production
homebuilding environment to also include multi-family and urban infill
product, and we began to focus on the development of garden style mid-
rise and high rise condominiums, creating a division specifically
focused on that, called Comstock Communities, which builds as high as 11
story condominium towers today.
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