Builder breaks ground on $7.4 million home without a buyer

Developer Rick Bell recently broke ground on The Azuria, a $7.4 million Southwest Ranches home being built on "spec," without a buyer in place.

The 12,500-square-foot property is planned for more than two acres in Landmark Ranch Estates the only gated community in the town south of Weston. Bell, head of Landmark Custom Homes, is working with Affiniti Architects and Shuster Design Associates. They expect to complete construction in late 2016.

The contemporary two-story home will have floor-to-ceiling walls of glass, six bedrooms, six bathrooms, two half-baths, a six-car garage and fountains out front. It also will have a one-bedroom guest house.

Bell sold a $5.5 million spec home in Southwest Ranches last year.

"That home sold when the drywall was complete halfway through construction," Bell said Monday. "There was almost no marketing. That gave us the confidence that our decision-making was correct."

Speculative, or "spec," building disappeared during South Florida's housing downturn, but it's slowly returning now that the market has recovered. It will be more prevalent this year because of a severe shortage of land for production homebuilding, particularly in Broward County, said Scott Worley, president of the Gold Coast Builders Association, an industry trade group serving Broward and Palm Beach counties.

"It's always less risky when you build a home after you have it sold," Worley said. "But [spec building] is a model that a lot of small, regional builders are using. As long as the housing market is strong, you'll see it."

Bell says he has built dozens of spec homes in South Florida over the past 25 years. In 2013, with the market bouncing back from the six-year bust, Bell announced plans to build a 24,000-square-foot spec home in Southwest Ranches.

He named the property Palazzo Paradiso and started work on designs that included eight bedrooms, a meditation garden, koi pond and a full-sized sports court for tennis and basketball. Bell ultimately decided to postpone construction because he felt the $10 million price tag may have been too ambitious, though he said he still plans to build it eventually.

Most spec building occurs near the coast on waterfront lots, but Bell insists it's ideal for southwest Broward because of the lack of competition there. He expects the buyer pool to include entrepreneurs, professional athletes and chief executives.

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Builder breaks ground on $7.4 million home without a buyer