M/I Homes Texas strategy, repeatable plans and fewer options

I first saw the production logic in Columbus.

M/I Homes later paired a similar discipline with Texas talent, southern scale and national capital. I first encountered M/I Homes indirectly when I joined Brian Esher and his merry band of SWAT team members at STORM Consulting, where we worked on behalf of Silver Point Capital. I spent more than a year in Columbus with the team, helping to return Dominion Homes to the profitable homebuilding machine it had once been.

This was not a brief consulting engagement or a superficial cost-cutting exercise. We were embedded in the operation, working through architecture, purchasing, construction systems, design-center selections and the customer value proposition.

Our goal was not merely to reduce expenses. It was to rebuild the operating system. We worked alongside Dominion’s corporate architect and our external team of architects at Kipp Flores in Austin to rethink the product platform from the ground up. Those lessons still shape how I view production homebuilding and why M/I Homes’ growth in Texas makes sense to me.

Box-on-box without the basement

One of the most consequential changes we made at Dominion was introducing box-on-box design without basements. That was a significant shift in Columbus, where basements and more complicated building forms had long been part of the product expectation.

The new homes were easier to frame, estimate and repeat. We reduced unnecessary roof transitions, structural complexity and square footage that cost money to build but did not deliver enough perceived value for the customer. The objective was never to make the homes feel cheaper. It was to remove costs buyers did not appreciate and focus value where they could see, use and understand it.

Simple architecture led to longer production runs, more predictable purchasing, and fewer field errors. Trades repeated the same details, estimators priced with greater confidence, and construction teams moved faster. The box was not the compromise. It was the discipline.

Chocolate, vanilla and strawberry

We brought the same thinking into the design center. Rather than confronting buyers with an endless catalog of selections, we introduced what we called the chocolate, vanilla and strawberry program. These were three curated finish packages built around the selections customers chose most frequently, the products that supported the longest production runs and the combinations that generated the strongest margins.

Chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry were not merely the most popular packages. They were also the cleanest to purchase, schedule, and install. Longer runs improved purchasing power. Standardization reduced errors. Field execution became more predictable. Buyers still received homes that felt intentional and personal, but the builder was no longer paying for complexity that added little value.

We also required every home to use one of five approved tinted wall colors. No builder beige. That particular disease still runs rampant across DFW, where too many builders confuse neutral with lifeless. The rule was not about eliminating design. It was about improving design through disciplined choice.

A buyer needs a small number of good choices that work with the flooring, cabinets, countertops and lighting. The builder needs selections that can be purchased consistently, installed correctly and repeated at scale. The best production systems remove waste, not value.

The results were not marginal

Through box-on-box architecture, simplified construction, curated finish packages, and longer production runs, we reduced direct construction costs by approximately 20% compared with Dominion’s existing per-square-foot construction costs in Columbus.

At the same time, the customer value proposition improved. That remains one of the most important lessons in homebuilding: lower cost does not have to mean a worse home. Done correctly, lower cost means removing complexity the customer does not value and redirecting savings to the features the buyer actually notices.

This is where many builders get value engineering wrong. They start with the existing house and remove visible features until the pro forma works. The customer feels every cut. The better approach starts with the operating system: simplify the geometry, reduce structural waste, repeat details, curate finishes, and protect the parts of the home that create emotional value. That is how a builder can reduce costs without reducing desirability.

The Texas opportunity I thought Silver Point would seize

Once Dominion’s operations were back up and running, I saw a much larger opportunity. I hoped Silver Point would use Dominion as a platform to scale the model into Texas. The product strategy could scale. Texas offered population growth, household formation, and the kind of horizontal development environment where efficient, repeatable housing could become a major competitive advantage.

Those same principles seemed well suited to Texas. Instead, Dominion was sold to Pulte. The platform was absorbed into a much larger organization, and the opportunity to scale it independently in Texas appeared to disappear with it.

Or so I thought.

Back home in Texas, M/I Homes made two particularly intelligent choices: Dave Matlock and Craig Westmoreland.

Two Texas operators who knew the field

Both Matlock and Westmoreland were Texas natives who had come up in San Antonio under the Rayco model. They understood high-volume production, disciplined product design, local buyers and the importance of matching capital with operators who knew the market.

Matlock had also served as a division president for D.R. Horton in San Antonio and Atlanta and had exited two private homebuilding companies. He understood how to establish, scale and monetize a housing platform.

Craig had previously been running San Antonio for KB Home. He was the person who recruited me and convinced me to give KB a try, so I saw firsthand his ability to identify talent, build teams and translate national strategy into local execution.

M/I led with Dave and then tried to run the field with Craig blocking. It was a smart formation. Matlock brought executive authority, operating history and platform-building experience. Westmoreland helped clear the path through recruiting, relationships, market knowledge and execution. Those were not generic corporate hires. They were highly specific picks for the assignment of opening Texas.

M/I did not arrive with national capital alone. It arrived with local operators who understood production housing, Texas buyers and how to build a division that could scale. They began blowing and going.

The South became the operating system

Approximately 60% of M/I Homes’ business is now concentrated in the South, and the homes in those southern markets are ranch and box-on-box products. That is not merely an architectural preference. It is an operating system.

Simple building forms reduce framing complexity. They limit unnecessary roof transitions. They make estimating more reliable, purchasing more consistent and field execution easier to control. They also support spec construction because the builder can repeat proven plans without waiting for each buyer to redesign the home.

The intelligence is not simply that M/I builds ranches and boxes in the South. The intelligence is that approximately 60% of the company’s business now runs within a product system designed for speed, repeatability and scale. The same operating logic I saw in Columbus found a natural home in Texas and across the broader South.

No basement. Simpler form. Repeatable plans. Controlled selections. Faster field execution.M/I did not need to recreate Dominion’s program exactly. The broader principle was enough: remove complexity the customer does not value, preserve what the customer notices and use repetition to create cost and speed advantages.

Keep the box. Improve the wrapper.

The opportunity I see now is not to abandon that machine. It is to elevate what the customer sees around it. A box does not have to look cheap. A ranch plan does not have to feel generic. Repetition does not have to produce sameness. M/I has already solved much of the production problem. It knows how to standardize, build quickly, and repeat plans across large southern markets.

The next opportunity is to improve the elevations, theming and neighborhood experience without damaging the operating system underneath. Keep the box. Improve the wrapper.

A disciplined builder can work from a limited set of plans while varying porches, roof treatments, materials, exterior colors, landscaping and neighborhood themes. The construction platform remains efficient, but the street no longer looks like the same house repeated 40 times.

The same principle applies to community design. Better entrances, stronger streetscapes, thoughtful fencing, meaningful landscaping, usable parks, and pedestrian connections can create emotional value before a buyer even enters the model home. Architecture and placemaking are not decorative luxuries. They can be part of the sales strategy. A better-looking home in a better-themed neighborhood requires less explanation and, over time, fewer incentives. The home and the community do more of the selling.

Spend where the buyer notices

The Columbus experience taught us a simple rule: spend where the buyer notices and standardize where the buyer does not. That remains the opportunity for M/I today. The company does not need dozens of floor plans or hundreds of option combinations to create differentiation. That adds complexity, increases costs, and slows delivery. It needs better curation.

Give the buyer a better porch. Improve the street elevation. Create stronger material transitions. Use color intentionally. Build a neighborhood entry that establishes identity. Make the park functional rather than ornamental. Inside the home, maintain disciplined packages that coordinate well and can be installed at scale. Outside the home, create enough visual variety to make the neighborhood feel designed rather than merely produced.

Choice need not be endless to feel meaningful. In many cases, the most effective design strategy is to offer fewer, better choices and execute them consistently. The goal is not to complicate the house. The goal is to make a simple house feel intentional.

Texas may be the center of a larger ambition

I do not know what the Schottenstein family ultimately wants M/I Homes to become. But from the outside, it looks to me as though they are eyeing a top-three national position, and Texas may be the market that leads them there. The ingredients are in place.

M/I is well capitalized. It has some of the best local housing minds on the ground. It has a repeatable product platform, a strong presence across the South, and the confidence to keep building while others pull back. Texas gives the company the scale to make that ambition possible. It offers population and employment growth, household formation, and a wide range of submarkets where efficient housing production can be repeated.

But Texas also punishes builders that try to operate entirely from a distant corporate office. Capital alone is not enough. The winning builders pair national financial strength with local leaders who understand the land, municipalities, trades, school districts, product, and buyers.

M/I appears to have done exactly that. Its Texas expansion looks less like a national builder imposing a generic formula and more like strong local operators using national capital to move faster. That is a powerful combination.

The strategy came here anyway

I had hoped the Dominion platform would make its way to Texas. It did not happen through Dominion, but the strategy came here anyway. M/I brought its own version, placed it in the hands of capable Texas operators, and turned it into a serious growth engine. The company paired simple architecture with repeatable construction and matched national capital with people who knew the field. That is why M/I’s success in Texas does not look accidental to me.

It appears to be the result of accumulated operating intelligence.

The next step is not to abandon the ranch-and-box-on-box system that helped achieve scale. It is to refine it – to make the homes more attractive, the streets more distinctive, and the neighborhoods more memorable without introducing the kind of complexity that destroys the cost advantage.

M/I already has the machine. Now it has the opportunity to give the machine a stronger architectural identity and a more compelling sense of place. If it does, Texas may become more than just one of M/I’s most important markets.

It may become the operating foundation of a top-three national homebuilder.