Building science gives stalled builder new life

Principals of Arizona’s Saddleback Homes license a whole-house solution to energy efficiency.

A startup builder that a year ago couldn’t give its houses away to Phoenix buyers has reinvented itself as a marketer of energy efficient construction technology.

In late 2007, Saddlebrook Homes of Scottsdale, Ariz., was preparing to start marketing 3,900-square-foot houses priced between $450,000 and $500,000 within a 40-lot subdivision in south Phoenix. But the housing market there was drying up, and local real estate agents informed the builder that they would not be able to find buyers for those homes at that time. “We were fired by our realtors,” says Jan Prieb, the company’s vice president of public relations, only half jokingly.