David Hunihan

CEO at Lee Wetherington Homes

Speaker

David Hunihan is a State Licensed Florida Residential Contractor and a Florida Real Estate Broker. His degree is in Marketing from Boston College's Carroll School of Management. He has extensive experience in all aspects of sales and marketing for a variety of businesses and industries, including direct sales, advertising, market research, public relations and publicity. He also has over 30 years’ experience in operations, organizational management, and strategic planning.

David has had experience in all aspects of the residential home building industry, working for public and private, national and local, production and custom builders. He has personal and leadership experience in sales and marketing, construction, land development and acquisition roles, as well as executive leadership and ownership for multiple companies.

From 1995 to 2000, starting as an on-site salesperson and working up to the role of President, David helped grow Lee Wetherington Homes from $12 million in annual sales volume to over $50 million. He founded Fidelity Homes in June of 2000, a building company that received numerous awards and national recognition, including over a dozen feature articles in Professional Builder Magazine.

From 2009 until 2014 he was the Director of Sales for Neal Communities, one of Southwest Florida's most experienced home builders, where unit sales increased over 300% in the 5 years he was there. Neal averaged over 40% unit volume growth per year and had over 30% market share in their home County of Manatee. They had 835 home closings for over $237,000,000 in sales volume in 2013, making Neal the 50th largest building company in the United States.

In 2014 David took a position as the Operations Manager for Emerald Homes, a DR Horton Company. He supervised construction, purchasing and sales for the Emerald Division for Tampa and Sarasota, including one of the luxury brands’ most successful spot lot programs in the Country.

In 2016, David joined M/I Homes as the Area President for their newest Division serving Sarasota and Manatee counties. During his tenure, the Division acquired and / or developed over 1000 home sites, doubling its sales and closing volume in both 2018 and 2019, and opening 11 brand new communities. In 2018 the Sarasota Division was awarded the highest Customer Satisfaction Rating award for all of M/I’s 15 Divisions.

From 2019 until May of 2021, David was the Vice President and Project Manager for Aqua, a 500+ acre, 2894 home mixed-use community in southwest Manatee. He oversaw all development and entitlement activities including the construction of Sarasota/Manatee’s very first Crystal Lagoon.

In June of 2021, David returned to Lee Wetherington Homes as its CEO, hoping to finish his homebuilding career where he started.

David has been a Licensed Florida Real Estate Instructor, a licensed soccer coach, and has extensive experience training and coaching both adults and children.

Originally from New Jersey, David now resides in Bradenton, with Lauren, his wife of 31 years, and has three brilliant and beautiful daughters, Shannon, 29, Samantha, 27, and Ainsley, 21.

David’s specialties include organizational and strategic planning, leadership, advertising, sales, marketing, job-site supervision and scheduling, quality control, negotiating, land acquisition, home and community design and development, and customer service.

David is active in his local Church, and serves on the boards of City Commit, Rough Cut Men, and The Change Factory.

He is a Past President and Life Director of the Manatee-Sarasota Building Industry Association and is a Lifetime Spike of the National Association of Homebuilders.