A builder plans to bring up to 1,500 single-family houses to a booming suburb north of Tampa, Florida, and the company said it won't need to lure buyers by offering a popular incentive used by its major U.S. rivals.

As part of its plan, GL Homes said it will build a 55-and-over neighborhood of 517 houses in the Pasco County area of Wesley Chapel. The Valencia Ridge models are scheduled to open in the fall, with prices ranging from $449,900 to $819,900, the company said.

Misha Ezratti, president of privately held GL, told CoStar News the company could build nearly 1,000 additional houses in Pasco, but it has not yet announced specific plans for its other land holdings in the area.

With recent sluggish sales of newly built houses and mortgage rates near 7%, some publicly held builders boost sales through mortgage rate buy-downs. They use profits from the sales to lower buyers' interest rates, a move that helps overcome the elevated borrowing costs that have dissuaded house shoppers and left some sellers holding onto properties.

Miami-based Lennar, the nation's largest homebuilder by 2023 revenue, reported a 9% increase in earnings for the quarter ended May 31, in part due to strong demand created by mortgage-rate buy-downs. KB Home and other public builders also have benefited from the same momentum.

But those buy-downs aren't a strategy GL uses, Ezratti said.

The company markets primarily to luxury buyers and retiring baby boomers, two customer groups that typically don't seek mortgage rate buy-downs because they already have personal wealth, substantial equity in their existing homes, or both, according to Ezratti.

What's more, unlike public builders that have to maintain sales volume and answer to shareholders, GL can be more patient and deliberate.

"We don't have to meet a quota of sales," Ezratti said.

GL, based in Sunrise, Florida, has sold tens of thousands of single-family residences since its founding in 1976. It also is planning to build large developments in other parts of its home state. The family-owned business builds exclusively in the Sunshine State, closing on 2,062 houses last year, making it the nation's 22nd-largest private builder, according to Builder magazine.

GL has sold out two other housing developments in Pasco, Winding Ridge and The Ridge at Wiregrass Ranch. Valencia Ridge would be the builder's first 55-and-over neighborhood in the county, though it has sold more than 2,000 of the so-called active adult homes in the Tampa market.

Its 55-and-over projects, all marketed under the Valencia brand, come with large clubhouses, pools, pickleball courts and other features. Full-time social directors organize activity schedules that include clubs, games and live performances. Prices in most of its Valencia developments across the state start in the $400,000s.

In recent years, cattle farms have made way for new housing in Pasco, helping it become the third fastest-growing county in the nation, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Census Bureau. The area is about a 45-minute commute from downtown Tampa, and the county has access to the state's largest seaport and six major interstate corridors.

Pasco offers a business-friendly, low-tax environment, according to Bill Cronin, president and CEO of the Pasco Economic Development Council. The county's growth also has been fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic, when millennials left urban areas in search of more space, Cronin said.

Pasco's 2023 population reached nearly 633,000 residents, according to Census figures, but Cronin told CoStar News he expects the population to grow close to 1 million by 2050.

He added that GL should sell plenty of 55-and-over houses in Pasco. He said he agreed with the builder that retired baby boomers want to stay active, enjoy the Florida lifestyle and live near their children and grandchildren.

"We've always been known as God's waiting room, but most baby boomers don't see themselves as that demographic," Cronin said.

Still, Pasco's commercial development has not yet caught up with residential, Lei Wedge, an associate professor of finance at the University of South Florida in Tampa, said in an interview. The area near Valencia Ridge, for example, needs more shops and restaurants within an easy drive for residents, she noted.

"Maybe in the future that will change with all the neighborhoods getting built," Wedge said.