Type Partnership Founder Ellis Reed Ivory | Industry Home Building | |
Founded Salt Lake, Utah (1964 (1964)) Headquarters 978 Woodoak Lane, Salt Lake City, UT, United States Key people Clark Ivory
(CEO)
Ellis Reed Ivory
(Founder) | ||
Ivory Homes is the largest homebuilder in the state of Utah, based both on building units and total revenue. Ellis Ivory, the founder of Ivory Homes, created a homebuilding business unique in its ability to adapt to changing conditions and meet customers’ evolving needs. Currently Clark Ivory, manages the company. By mid-2013 Ivory Homes will have completed over 15,000 homes in the state of Utah. According to Builder magazine, Ivory Homes was the 51st largest homebuilder in the nation in 2011.
Contents
Early Years
Ivory & Company was the predecessor to Ivory Homes. In the early 1970s Ivory & Company began developing lots and eventually became one of the largest land developers in the state of Utah, doing roughly 18-20% of all lot development in the state, or about 2,000 lots a year. As the market struggled in the late seventies/ early eighties, Ivory & Company had to find a way to turn the lots they owned. Eventually it was decided that building homes themselves on the lots they owned would be the best way to better the company’s situation. 1983 was the first year Ivory & Company began to build, they built 30 homes.
Ivory Homes Creation and Development
In 1989 Ivory & Company became Ivory Homes a name much better suited for the business. Since then Ivory Homes has dominated the home building industry in Utah, holding the position of Utah’s number one homebuilder for 28 consecutive years.
In 1994 Clark Ivory began the process of buying the company from his father Ellis. By 2000 Ellis had fully retired and Clark had complete responsibility for the company. Clark still heads the company as CEO accompanied by Rick Lifferth (CFO), Chris Gamvroulas (Ivory Development), and four area managers, John Cahoon, Eric Freebairn, David Zollinger, and Jair Almaraz. Today the Ivory team consists of approximately 130 employees and 65 sales consultants.
The company experienced huge growth in the years of the housing boom, maintaining their position as the largest homebuilder in Utah. Since then Clark Ivory has carefully managed the business and maintained the companies position as Utah's number one homebuilder. Ivory Homes has maintained a customer satisfaction rating of 92% over the last decade.
Ivory Homes has experimented with many sorts of new ‘green technologies’, and in 2011 reported all of their homes as being energy star certified. Since then Ivory has created their own rating system for green certification which goes further in requiring innovation and attention to being green.
In the past decade Ivory Homes has introduced many new sales and marketing techniques to help people move into new homes who otherwise couldn’t because of credit issues. They began a program called the Ivory Financial Fitness program. This helps people overcome their credit issues, and get loans in order to buy a new house. By partnering with AAA Fair Credit Foundation they are able to help people build up their credit scores before applying for a loan, so that they qualify and buy an Ivory Home. This program has worked well for them. Ivory Homes also has been offering a three-year lease guarantee to home owners, so that buyers can have three years to sell their existing homet
Ivory Homes was ranked #42 on Builder Magazines top 100 builders of 2012. Ivory Homes is currently celebrating their 28 consecutive year as being Utah's number one homebuilder.
Controversy
In December 2013, the Applewood Park mobile home complex announced rent increases for their property totaling 44 percent over a six-month period. Applewood Park was purchased in 2011 by a company affiliated with Ivory Homes, ICO Multifamily Holdings. Residents, suspect the rent increases are designed to force them to abandon their homes and allow ICO to replace the neighborhood with a 186-unit apartment complex.