Canadian homebuilder Glenview Homes expands into Texas

Canadian homebuilder Glenview Homes, based in Ottawa, announced that it will enter the United States market with a new Texas division. 

Homebuilding operations and business veteran Blake Roberts will head up the newly formed division. Operations will begin in Houston, but Glenview Homes’ strategy calls for expansion into other Texas markets and potentially other states down the road. 

The pairing makes sense for both parties. 

In Roberts, Glenview Homes gets an experienced homebuilding leader with about two decades of experience in the Texas market. He previously worked at Century Communities for about four years, first as Houston Division President, then as Regional President of Texas. Before that, he was President and CEO of Camillo Properties and its various homebuilding subsidiaries. 

For Roberts, the opportunity to spearhead Glenview Homes’ expansion into Texas was one that he didn’t want to pass on. 

“My general background from very early on in my career has been entrepreneurial-based,” Roberts told HousingWire’s The Builder’s Daily. “The entrepreneurial side is really where my passion lies in the business.”

An emphasis on customer experience

Glenview Homes is a family-owned and operated business. Sol Shabinsky founded the company in 1966, and three generations of the family have grown Glenview Homes into a leading builder in the Ottawa market. 

Roberts explained that he is excited to work for a private homebuilder once again and that he is impressed by Glenview Homes’ emphasis on customer service. 

As Roberts put it, the homebuilding industry has become more focused on scale and efficiency over time, often at the expense of the customer experience. Glenview Homes is a family-run company that builds homes for specific buyers and prioritizes a thoughtful, customer-centered approach over a more standardized transactional process. 

Putting people in the right home is a major reason Roberts is passionate about the homebuilding business. Success starts with listening carefully to customers and identifying their needs before presenting any options, Roberts said. Instead of just showing homes based on price, builders should help shape the experience by offering clear guidance and curated choices that align with the buyer’s vision. 

Moving away from a transactional mindset allows for a more thoughtful, customer-centered process.

“What Glenview has done is, they’ve really put a product and customer-facing strategy together, where we’re not going to just build as many houses as we can just to build houses,” said Roberts. “We’re going to build houses for specific people, and make that experience a top-notch experience. And I think this market is losing that in some form or fashion, where it’s become more of a numerical game than it is an experience.”

The Texas expansion

Glenview Homes’ expansion into Texas is partially one of familiarity. Managing Director Jake Shabinsky attended the University of Texas, and the owners have some family ties to the state. However, the expansion into the Lone Star State is also opportunity-based. 

Which is not to say that Texas isn’t one of the more ferociously competitive markets in the country, crowded with operations of every major public national homebuilder, as well as many of the nation’s most well-rooted, powerful regional and local private homebuilders.

Still, from across the Canada border, Texas beckons, and Glenview Homes strategists believe they can bring differentiable value to the market arena.

“The US market on the homebuilding side is probably, in a lot of cases, more conducive than a lot of options they have there in Canada,” Roberts said. “Texas, arguably, is one of, if not the most, conducive markets for homebuilding. It’s a very business-friendly environment. It’s a very development-friendly environment. It’s a place where cost control and the trade base are still very capable and easy to obtain.”

Glenview Homes will begin operations in Texas, and could begin vertical construction on its first homes within six months or so, if all goes according to plan. After that, the builder hopes to push into other major markets such as Dallas, Austin and San Antonio.

Beyond that is a possibility, but standing up operations in Texas will be the first priority. 

The team plans to initially acquire lots in larger projects, but ultimately wants to develop their own communities. 

Building a new homebuilding division starts with hiring the right people, Roberts said, since a strong, experienced team makes everything else possible in homebuilding. From there, it becomes about executing the fundamentals, including developing the right products, establishing the brand, creating market visibility and leveraging relationships with developers to secure development opportunities. 

“Creating a team, in my opinion, that’s the primary pillar, right? We can do anything in homebuilding with the right people around us. So that’s kind of the key piece— trying to build a team that can follow the vision and the strategic goals that we have in place,” Roberts explained.