Southern Land Company has made a leadership hire to spearhead single-family home development in three key states, Commercial Observer has learned.

Tony Marchbanks has joined the firm as national president of homebuilding, in which he will focus not only on the U.S., but also focus particularly on Tennessee, Texas and Colorado, according to Southern Land.

Marchbanks brings with him 30 years of real estate experience and most recently served as chief operating officer for Highland Homes, where he launched a building spree in the Houston market, producing 1,000 homes per year, Southern Land said.

“Higher interest rates and lack of job growth all culminate into a lack of consumer confidence, so you have all three key contributors to a good homebuilding environment that are headwinds at this time,” Marchbanks told CO.

“But for a company like Southern Land, it’s actually a huge opportunity because they have expansion plans, particularly into Texas, which is the largest new home market in the country,” Marchbanks said. “Most builders secured their lot supply three years ago, and now they have too many lots. So it’s an opportunity for a company like Southern Land to find and [invest] in communities they wouldn’t have been able to in a strong market.”

Southern Land is currently developing four master-planned communities across 5,000 individual lots in its portfolio. Marchbanks will oversee the construction, purchasing, sales and architecture for those soon-to-be neighborhoods.

Southern Land has been making some changes in recent months by launching its own mortgage lending division in May to augment its sales division and support its construction pipeline, CO reported at the time.

Build-to-sell homes are not the only residential asset class Southern Land has been dabbling in either, as it builds multifamily properties in Las Vegas; Erie, Colo.; and just outside Austin, Tex.

Mark Hallum can be reached at mhallum@commercialobserver.com.