Family Homes at a Family-Friendly Price

Anchorage families face a complicated housing market. Housing prices are the highest in 20 years. Mortgage payments have risen 50% in just six years. At Spinell Homes, we understand the stress that a high dollar housing market puts on families who just want a home to call their own. As a family owned and operated business for more than 35 years, we believe in building homes for every family. That’s why we created the lowest priced single-family new construction community in Anchorage. 

Birch Meadow is a community of single-family homes in Northeast Anchorage. These new construction homes start at $458,000. Owning a new construction home gives you full control of the layout, style, finishes and more. Our Birch Meadow homes feature quartz countertops, stainless steel appliances and energy efficient features. Birch Meadow floor plans feature three or four bedrooms and range in size from 1,400 to 1,900 square feet. Plans can have up to two and a half bathrooms and a two-car garage. Birch Meadow is near JBER, downtown, Centennial Park and Tikahtnu Commons. 

While townhouses and condos are the perfect fit for some families, single-family homes offer a unique set of benefits. With no shared walls, single-family homes are quiet, private and there’s more space to spread out. Plus, when you build, that’s the price tag, there’s no added expense of remodeling to fix aging features and style choices.

We understand the frustration of families searching for homes right now. Housing prices are high and it’s due to a complicated set of factors including the cost of materials, land availability and cumbersome regulations. Outdated regulations make building in Anchorage extremely sluggish and costly for homebuilders. For example, despite Birch Meadow being an affordable option for people seeking new construction single-family homes, the city’s land use codes created unnecessary obstacles in the process. In order to create a small lot single-family subdivision, regulations required Spinell Homes to spend time and money to create a special set of zoning rules, referred to as a PUD or Planned Unit Development..   

As a long-time member of the Anchorage community, I’m interested in building more communities like Birch Meadow. While there’s little we can do to drive down the price of materials, we can take a look at unnecessary regulations. Anchorage’s arduous permitting and entitlement process prevents development and creates unnecessary cost. Girdwood, Eagle River, Stuckagain Heights and Bear Valley follow a different permitting process than Anchorage. All of these homes adhere to the same codes and standards, yet the process for getting building permits in the Anchorage Bowl is much more expensive and time consuming.  

Anchorage’s Assembly has been working toward some positive changes. Recently, they passed an initiative that allows duplexes in all residential zoning districts. But if Anchorage residents have any hope of seeing lower home prices, more work needs to be done. 

From condos to custom builds, at Spinell Homes we’re focused on families. Birch Meadow is just one of many family-friendly communities we’re building. We’ll continue to build every home with safety and energy efficiency in mind because at Spinell, we’re building things better.