By Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
Glenn Layton grew up with a hammer in his hand.
“I am the son of a developer,” said Layton, division president of Woodside Homes and the incoming president of the Northeast Florida Builders Association. “I have been on construction sites since I was in my early teens. I spent a lot of time on commercial and residential job sites.
“I just loved it. I loved being outdoors. I loved getting my hands in the middle of all that stuff. So, I worked all my summers on construction sites and decided that what I wanted to do.”
Layton is a 1984 graduate of the University of North Florida with a bachelor’s degree in construction management. He worked for a couple of homebuilding companies, including Summerhomes and First Coast Builders, from 1984 until 1990 where he did estimating, purchasing and was the superintendent in the field.
In 1990 he was laid off so he started his own company, Glenn Layton General Contracting to do renovations and additions, build homes and churches, and some commercial work.
In 1997, he went to work for North Florida Builders and that’s where he is today, going through a buyout by Woodside Homes. He’s now the division president.
“Right now I wear a lot of hats,” he said. “I’m really responsible for the overall day-to-day operations here at Woodside. That would be sales, marketing, construction and anything that has to do with purchasing.
“We have managers for each of them, but overall that is my responsibility. My number one responsibility is to put a product in the ground that meets the market conditions with price, product and location and produces a profit for us at the end of the day.”
Layton first became involved in NEFBA in 1997.
“I was asked to be on the board and got involved in some of the different committees and councils,” he said. “I really felt that there was a lot that we could get out of it, so I stayed involved. I was asked to think about getting into the leadership chairs.”
So he went through the chairs secretary/treasurer, first vice president and president-elect - to the top.
“(Holding offices) keeps you involved in all of the issues that the industry is facing,” said Layton. “It gives you a learning period of how things work and how the whole organization comes together.”
It comes together, he says, because of the staff.
“The behind-the-scenes effort that the staff makes really makes the job of president a figurehead position,” he said. “They have wonderful group of people over there that have been led to serve. They are great servants to our industry and provide great support to me and the rest of the leadership team.”
The NEFBA president provides leadership and it’s crucial in these times, he said.
“This year there has been a tremendous focus on the industry as a whole. There have been a lot of changes,” he said. “There have been bank changes, market changes and all kinds of things that have affected our industry. The economy has changed.”
With this being an election year, Layton said it really took the effort of the leadership of the association to determine which direction or which position the association would take.
As far as a time commitment, Layton said it really depends on how much you want to put into it.
“There are a lot of weeks that there isn’t a whole lot going on,” he said. “You can handle it with a visit or two for an hour or two over at the association office. Then there are weeks you may spend 20 or 30 hours a week on NEFBA issues depending the level of the things that are going on.”
Though the future is not as bright as when Layton signed up to get in line to be president, he isn’t letting that get him down.
“I think 2009 is really going to be an extension of a lot of the stuff that has happened in 2008,” said Layton. “We are really going to work on supporting our industry. We are going to be supporting our members by focusing on getting everyone’s business back on track.”
Educating the members is the key to that goal.
“Many times people do not understand all the things that are going on in our industry,” he said.
NEFBA communicates with its members through round-table discussions and gatherings where members can come and ask questions.
“They are all experiencing the same type of issues, so they can band together as a group and try and help understand what is really going on,” he said.
Issues such as impact fees, growth restrictions and building permit fees affect the whole industry and Layton said he has heard some rumblings of some more issues on the horizon. In the past, the association has banded together against issues. By showing up in numbers to oppose or support causes, they have made a difference. Layton wants that to continue.
“Just being involved in things helps significantly for the overall organization and it benefits the members,” said Layton.
A new tag line for the association will be announced in January.
“Mark Downing’s (NEFBA’s ‘08 president) tag line has been ‘Perseverance’,” he said. “We had to persevere through the adversity and all things that were going on. For next year, we are really going to focus on the organization as a whole. We don’t want to force members into having to work at being a part of the association. We want the membership to really see the benefit of what the association is doing.
“We are working on a national level right now through our Congressional representatives to get some relief for some of the issues we face. We are getting a lot of federal pressure as individual builders for loans and operating as a general contractor. It will prove very beneficial to our membership as a whole. For 2009, we are going to continue to work on all the issues that are surrounding everything that has happened with our economy, marketplace and changes of how businesses were run in 2005 to how they were run in 2008 and moving forward.”
Though there seem to be homes for sale on every corner, Layton said builders are still building and the amount of homes for sale can be deceiving.
“New home inventory is at about seven and a half months, which is not too far off from what we call ‘equilibrium’,” he said. “Equilibrium for us equals to about six months of inventory. So, there is still a demand for new homes. There are still people who want to purchase a new home, but there are outside factors that are affecting that.”
Currently, bank short sales and foreclosures are the new homebuilder’s biggest competition.
“Two years ago, we had a ton of new home inventory,” he said. “That is the stuff that was left over from 2005 and 2006, when everyone was putting a lot of inventory in the ground. All that inventory has been worked through and builders are building based on what they feel the current demand is.
“Inventory is a little high, but it’s not high enough where it should make a significant impact on the overall availability of new homes. There are still a lot of resales on the market. People need to sell their home before they can purchase a new home.”
The amount of choices for buyers coming into this market has grown, said Layton. They can either buy a pre-sale, speculation, resale, foreclosure or bank short sale home.
“We have to get a handle on all of the other issues out there for this to change,” he said.
Since Layton has seen a drop in NEFBA’s membership, another issue he will tackle this year is membership retention and increasing membership.
“It’s a fact that in our industry there has been a lot of subcontractors, suppliers and builders going out of business and it’s due to the economy that we are in,” he said. “We’ve lost a lot of our membership to it.”
Benefits to being a member of NEFBA are the ability for members to do business with members.
“We support our association, so we should be actively looking for subcontractors, suppliers and trade partners that are members of our association,” he said. “It takes a lot of financial support for the association to do the things that they do, and that is to be able to work and fight these governmental agencies that try to hinder what we do everyday.”