By Staff Report Tuesday, October 29th, 2013

A new home in Westlake Village-based Ryland Group’s Woodlands Concerto Courtyard project near Houston. (Ryland Group media photo)

Westlake Village-based Ryland Group made a roaring comeback in the third quarter, with profits up 415 percent to $53.6 million. The parent company of national homebuilder Ryland Homes said revenue rose 60.7 percent to $576.4 million on higher sales as the housing market continued to rebound.

Ryland said it closed sales on 1,883 units during the third quarter, up 43.5 percent compared to 1,312 units in the third quarter of 2012. Home prices also increased, with the average closing price up 12.9 percent year-over-year to $298,000.

Ryland said new orders for its homes were up 6.1 percent to 1,592 units during the quarter. By dollar amount, new orders rose 33 percent to $523 million. The company’s backlog increased 37 percent to 3,376 units as of Sept. 30.

Ryland is one of the largest homebuilders in the country. At the height of the real estate boom, it built as many as 17,000 new homes a year. But when the real estate market collapsed, the company suffered massive losses — totally $1 billion between 2007 and 2011 — and struggled to stay afoot.

In response, it scaled back operations, cut costs and pulled out of some markets. Last year, it turned its first full-year profit since 2006, netting $40.3 million.

The company remains a much smaller operator than it was in the real estate heyday, but said it expects the housing market to continue to improve. Ryland projected fourth-quarter revenue of about $665 million, or $1.10 to $1.20 per share.