In the homebuilding industry, overcoming obstacles requires personalized communication and building solid, honest relationships. Kindred Homes has managed to use its deep history and genuine passion to provide superior products and maintain close communication with clients from start to finish of any project.
A true family affair, Terry Horton joined his brother Donald’s company, D. R. Horton, helping him build homes in Dallas-Fort Worth. He eventually raised his son Trent in the home construction industry, where he instilled a love of the business and a wealth of knowledge in the young man from an early age.
“That was my upbringing, with the early beginnings of that company,” says founder Trent Horton. “Lots of other family members joined; eventually they hired outside the family, and it kept going.”
After leaving that company in early 2001, Terry and his son Trent focused on land development. They launched back into the construction industry in 2009, later restructuring to establish Kindred Homes. Seeking expansion, they partnered with Todd Miller’s Glacier Custom Homes in 2018, enhancing the company’s portfolio with a luxury product line.
“Now operating as Kindred Homes, we’re finding our way to grow into a larger company,” says Horton. “Expanding will allow us to achieve a little bit greater scale, which we believe will enhance our stability. Being very small isn’t always as helpful as you may think, so our focus is on making daily efforts to grow.”
After 15 robust years, the team is obviously doing something right. Enduring family ties have also helped maintain the company’s success over the years. “If you grow up around it, you learn what not to do by osmosis,” Horton says.
He adds that the industry has changed a lot over the years with the loss of many mid-sized developers, making it harder for small to medium-sized private homebuilding companies to buy finished lots in neighborhoods.
“Although it can be a negative to be smaller because of all the big fish, it allows us to really have a focus on our customers and make modifications or changes quickly,” says Todd Miller, Partner. “Something we’ve been working on over the past few years is improving our customer service and having a nine-point process of how we go through this cycle and engage with our customers.”
It’s largely about communication, he adds—letting clients know what the company is offering and ensuring it’s communicated correctly, as well as communicating throughout the entire process to guarantee the quality expected is being delivered.
“That’s something we’ve improved greatly over the last 18 months with some of the people we’ve brought on,” Miller says. “Plus the ability to allow customers to personalize their home. That’s where we’re different from some builders we compete with; we allow some modifications and are more flexible with changes, so they feel they’re more bought into and invested in the process,” he shares.
While in larger companies there may be arduous processes involved in decision-making, smaller family-owned companies like Kindred allow questions to be answered and moves made quickly. “Being smaller, when we see things that don’t make sense, it’s a little easier and quicker for us to pull back and reallocate how we’re doing things. It allows us to make more changes that some of the other, larger builders may not be willing to do.” Within the Dallas area, Kindred builds around 100 to 200 houses a year, so the company is not so big that it can’t adjust quickly.
“As we aim to grow, it’s important for us to provide a superior customer experience, so that our buyers want to share with their friends and family how much they enjoyed building with us,” says Miller.
Word of mouth is always an appreciated method of earning new business, he adds. “That’s an important part of our business, those second, third, fourth buyer referrals, and we’ve worked hard to foster that,” says Miller. “We also use a service called Avid Ratings to gather feedback on our customers’ experiences, helping us continuously improve and meet their expectations every time.”
That commitment to quality customer service trickles down to how employees are treated. Kindred Homes was built on strong family ties and values that continue to this day.
“It’s truly a family feel here,” Miller says. “Culture has changed in business to be more employee-centric, and we’ve done a good job in getting our employees to understand they’re important. We try to share what we’re doing and welcome their input.”
Both Horton and Miller believe their company’s culture is only continuing to improve, as evidenced by high retention. “We’ve got a consistent team, and that consistency is something we’re really proud of,” says Miller.
“We’re all approachable, which feels good to people,” adds Horton. “There’s stability in a smaller company and it feels more like a family.”
“Kindred does feel like family. We know each other well—not only regarding work matters but also our personal lives.” agrees Courtney Castleberry, Marketing Manager. “What stands out to me is the commitment you get to see from senior leadership. They set the standard and work closely with every department to help us grow and succeed. This close-knit environment is a key highlight of working at a smaller company.”
The company’s personable approach extends to its charitable works as well. This includes its Hometown Heroes program, which supports educators, law enforcement, nurses, and other city workers, as well as the team’s ongoing contributions to local Toys for Tots initiatives. For example, Kindred Homes has participated in Toys for Tots year after year, with more than 250 toys donated last year alone. “We ask all of our employees to engage in our charity efforts,” says Castleberry, “but we also invite community members to join in giving back by providing donation boxes in each of our model home communities and hosting events in partnership with Toys for Tots. It’s been wonderful to witness the collaborative involvement.”
On the industry side, Kindred Homes is currently focused on growing Dallas-Fort Worth which is a “massive” market for housing, offering a significant opportunity for the company. And while Kindred already stands out through personalization and customization, another point of difference is the value the company can add to a community.
The aim is to “thoughtfully expand our portfolio of communities over time,” says Horton. “If we have an opportunity to go into a neighborhood that doesn’t make a lot of sense for us in terms of our product, the way we build, or who we’re competing against, it would be a thoughtful thing to say no, and instead grow in communities where we can be who we are, do what we feel we’re the best at, and profitably grow that way.”
Being authentic by holding to the company’s own vision and plans for future success is important to Kindred, he adds.
“You could just grow by buying lots, regardless of whether they make sense, but we’re going to buy lots that allow us to be successful for the people we put in those neighborhoods,” agrees Miller. “We’re not just going to grow for the sheer sake of revenue but to be thoughtful, so we can manage our balance sheets and also manage our day-to-day operations.”
Kindred’s competitive advantages also include better salespeople, better customer service, and better construction, Horton adds. Instead of just looking at a price point alone, big builders often compete head-to-head on price in certain communities, and whoever has the lowest cost of goods will have the most comfortable margins. “We’re not really focused on that, not really interested in competing that way,” he says. “I do believe the market is large and differentiated enough so that we can find the appropriate communities and grow over time.”
Naturally, affordability is also an ongoing concern for this team, Horton says, with customers’ incomes not keeping up with growing inflation, fuel costs, utilities, property taxes, and insurance over the years. “I’m shocked and surprised—but thankful—that consumers have held on as long as they have, but in talking to friends and family at all different income levels, their grocery costs are two and a half to three times what they were two years ago,” says Horton.
However, housing prices have outpaced inflation over the last three decades, he adds, which is beneficial on the investment side. “We’ve proven time and again that the greatest creation of wealth for most families is through their home. If we can somehow get that average family or average person in a house, it’s a forced savings account that should appreciate over time.”
Kindred’s commitment to building quality homes while holding to its personal vision and family values is made easier by its ability to attract and retain high-level and high-quality employees, allowing the company to ultimately provide a better product, adds Miller.
“It’s part of the culture, that it’s truly a family-owned and operated business. Everyone is treated the same way and enjoys coming here and hanging out for eight hours or more a day,” he says. “And we have the projects ahead. We encourage everyone to work hard, but we also like to play hard together. That’s what’s important to us.”
