Brock Homes Buys 11.5 Acres for 41 Duplexes in Aliso Viejo

Brock Homes said Thursday it bought 11.5 acres from the Mission Viejo Co. in its big planned community of Aliso Viejo for an undisclosed price.

The company says it will build about 41 relatively inexpensive duplexes inside the gated neighborhood. The site is on a hilltop off Moulton Parkway at the northwest corner of Laguna Hills Drive and Cedarbrook.

The deal is unusual in that relatively few land purchases have been made in the county in the last few years.

“Last year, it was attributable to the slow market, but this year it’s the financing crunch,” said Les Thomas, vice president of Brock Homes’ Orange County division. Banks have been reluctant to lend on real estate after many such loans went sour.

Thomas said Brock is financing the purchase internally.

The homes will sell in the low $200,000 range, Thomas said. That’s not exactly for first-time home buyers. It’s a price range more suited to “move-up” buyers making a transition from a condominium, for instance, but not yet able to afford a median-priced, single-family house. Detached houses in Orange County are among the most expensive in the nation.

Land prices, Thomas said, haven’t fallen much, given the lack of buyers, and now have likely dropped about as far as they’re going to. The company, a subsidiary of The Ryland Group Inc., one of the nation’s largest home builders, is negotiating to buy more land in the county.