California Home Builders No. 5 Fastest Growing Company Overall (83.43%) Skyrocketing home prices, a dearth of affordable housing and the colossal Southern California housing boom have made the past few years good ones for the Canoga Park residential construction company California Home Builders. From 2004 to 2005, revenue for the homebuilder jumped a whopping 83.43 percent from $24.08 million to $44.17 million and as of June 30 this year is already on track to hit $45.73 million. Such an increase, fueled by a perfect storm of conditions for residential developers, has made California Home Builders the fifth fastest growing private company in the San Fernando Valley. “Every year, we’ve been growing. We’ve been growing constantly,” said company President Shawn Evenhaim. Israel-born Evenhaim founded California Home Builders in 1994 to construct custom homes and in-fill residential communities. It was the zenith of the recession and Evenhaim determined early on that his company had to focus more on the customer and the neighborhood versus the bottom line. As a result, he crafted a small, close-knit staff that worked well together and took pride in their work, he said. He also created a simple credo to tackle only a handful of projects at a time so that a construction manager could see the project from beginning to end. “We don’t want to be a machine,” he said. “We want it to work with the community.” While the “customer first” concept wasn’t new, it was something of novelty among homebuilders then, Evenhaim said. People took notice. “We have people calling us all the time asking, ‘When is our next project?'” he said. Since then, the company has tackled hundreds of detached home, custom home, tract home and low-income, market-rate and senior apartment projects mostly in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. The vast majority have been centered in the Valley from two apartment complexes with 136 units in Sylmar and 36 homes on five Winnetka tracts to 32 apartments in Van Nuys and custom homes in Granada Hills. The projects have ranged from simple entry-level homes starting at $150,000 to $3 million custom homes. DLC Inc. No. 6 Fastest Growing Company Overall (70.15%) Even though it was founded just five years ago, the Woodland Hills finance and accounting consulting firm DLC Inc. is no stranger to fast growth. Between 2003 and 2004, the company increased revenue 75.30 percent, making it the seventh fastest growing private company in the San Fernando Valley area last year. That trend has continued through 2005. The company, founded by former recruiting consultant David Lewis, boosted its 2004 revenue of $14.2 million to $24.16 last year a 70.15% increase. The increase moved DLC up one slot to No. 6 on the Business Journal’s list of fastest growing private companies for 2006. Chris Coates
