They’re a couple with two young kids.

They currently reside in San Leandro.

The husband is a construction worker.

The wife is a dental hygienist.

They were looking for a home they could afford in a community where they would feel comfortable raising their family.

Their future neighbors are a strong mixture of “local” — Manteca, Lathrop, Modesto, Stockton, Mountain House, as well as Tracy — and Bay Area buyers.

They are nurses, truck drivers, construction workers, and such.

“We have blue collar buyers,” noted Raymus Homes President Ryan Gerding.

It’s the same type of buyer — the people who built Manteca and make it thrive— that the Raymus family has been building homes for since 1948.

Buyers that have come to expect  what Gerding notes is often more “value” per square foot especially in the family firm’s effort to strive to offer among their housing options a model that is consistently the lowest price point in Manteca.

Striving to offer attainable housing for local buyers that is value packed dovetails into the late Antone Raymus’ philosophy that he was not building homes but was building a community through Raymus Development and Sales. It is a bedrock principle that his son Bob and daughter Toni took with them when they launched Raymus Homes in 1998.

And to have daily reminders that what they are doing isn’t about crunching numbers and building things, each time a contract is sold for a house the sales representative snaps a picture of the family buying it, jots down a few notes about who they are and what they do and emails it to Toni and Bob.

“It helps us keep in mind why we are building homes,” Toni said.

Rare is the corner of Manteca where Raymus hasn’t built a home or their investment in the community can’t be found. Those investments over the course of two generations has provided Manteca with everything from non-profits serving youth such as Give Every Child a Chance to the Boys & Girls Club to efforts to extend a helping hand whether its via through HOPE Family Shelters or efforts that have included deep discounts or outright donation of property that has allowed churches to take root that provide outreach services to those struggling in Manteca.

Their commitment to non-profits serving the community  is both hands-on and financial. Between the siblings’ Building Dreams Foundation anchored with $2 million in principle along with personal contributions just over $250,000 flowed into the coffers of local non-profits in 2021.

Griffin Park is latest

Raymus neighborhood

Raymus Homes’ latest venture is the 1,301-home Griffin Park neighborhoods on South Main Street being developed in partnership with Atherton Homes and others.

Currently they are developing 157 lots and have a long waiting list. They expect to take five to six years before the final nail is pounded into place on the last home.

When finished, Raymus along with Atherton Homes will have built a series of livable neighborhoods where parks are connected by trails with housing aimed at five submarkets  from the at-market attainable housing on 5,000-square-foot lots to expansive lots designed for custom homes like the ones Raymus-built in Terracina Estates off of Northgate Drive near Airport Way in north Manteca. The most attainable homes start at $584,990 with a footprint of 1,668 square feet,

And working on the upwards of the 120 plus homes Raymus builds each year at any given time are 165 local workers being paid in the neighborhood of $30 an hour. Those jobs down the supply chain as well as related real estate services support another 2,900 jobs with some in Manteca and many beyond.

“Demand is strong,” Toni Raymus noted of the South County housing market that serves as the affordable housing options for many squeezed out of the Bay Area market where prices for traditional single-family homes passed the $1 million mark years ago.

While that might trigger flashbacks to 2006, Raymus takes comfort in a trend that is growing among local and Bay Area buyers alike. Almost all buyers are putting between 10 percent and 20 percent down.

That is in stark contrast to the run up to 2006 and the subsequent housing market collapse where buyers were putting 3 to 5 percent down or — in some cases — zero.

“They have money invested,” Gerding said.

As such they aren’t biting off more than they can handle especially when down payments in the 10 to 20 percent range are wedded with what are still historically low interest rates.

Nor will there be the temptation that some had 15 years ago to walk away from loan commitments that they could still handle simply because the home they were buying dropped in value during the market adjustment.

It’s called having “skin in the game”.

As such the upward pressure on prices and the demand that is still going strong does not have the same vibe as 2006 from  Raymus’ perspective.

The current trend isn’t exclusively benefitting Bay Area buyers. Unlike the 2006 era, the local resale market is seeing a strong run-up in prices. As such that has allowed Manteca residents to sell their homes — especially if they bought new homes within the past 10 years — and either move up or downsize while taking advantage of lower rates just as Bay Area buyers are doing.

And Manteca is statring to see more buyers that landed originally in Mountain House or Tracy selling homes in those two communities and buying in new Manteca neighborhoods.

Next up for Raymus

Homes is Manteca Trails

Raymus Homes will provide more attainable housing in the first phase of the Manteca Trails on the western end of Woodward Avenue where they plan to break ground on the first homes in October with site work getting underway shortly.

The 1,237-home project — a far cry from the first subdivision their father developed in 1948 that had 39 homes and was dubbed Esmond Hones with the first home built on Elmo Court in 1948 — is going forward as the siblings brought on Gerding in a bid to step up annual home building from 120 to 150 units.

Raymus sold three units consisting of 203 lots to Lennar Homes.

Raymus Homes will start work this fall on a 56-home unit that contains the smallest lots with homes designed to be the most affordable new homes built in Manteca. They are being built on 3,450-quare-foot lots starting with a one-story 1,400-square-foot floorplan.

Gerding said the homes will be indistinguishable in looks from the higher-priced models planned by Lennar Homes in the adjoining units.

The project will be unique in that there are developing a greenbelt allowing the northern side of a dry levee that will have access for walkers and joggers atop of it.

The two projects will keep Raymus Homes busy for the most of the remaining part of the decade. They are already working on new projects that will go forward to groundbreaking north of Lathrop Road in north Manteca.

Raymus Homes works to capitalize on Manteca’s slightly better relatively affordability compared to neighboring communities. Based on an overall tax — general, bonds, and community facility districts — the typical Raymus Home has a 1.2 percent tax rate, lower than River Islands or Tracy.

They also take other steps to enhance affordability based on the monthly cost of buying and maintaining a home.

For example, the price of the state-required solar is collapsed into the price instead of having separate payments that help reduce the out-of-pocket affordability.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com