A reasonable scenario range for a manager-run Epcon Communities franchisee is approximately $145,000 to $770,000 in estimated pre-tax owner earnings, based on 6 to 15 annual home closings in a 30-home reference project. The 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document does not report sales, profit, EBITDA, cash flow, owner compensation, or another Item 19 earnings measure, so this is not an official franchisor result.
This range is an independent analytical scenario, not an Item 19 financial performance representation by Epcon Communities Franchising, LLC. It combines identified 2026 FDD facts with a U.S. Census Bureau new-home price benchmark, a National Association of Home Builders pre-tax profit benchmark, and explicit closing-volume and margin assumptions. Actual results can differ materially by market, project format, home price, land basis, construction cost, sales pace, labor, financing, owner involvement, and execution.
Legal franchisor: Epcon Communities Franchising, LLC. FDD evidence: 2026 FDD, Items 5, 6, 7, 15, 17, 19, and 20. Item 19 status: no financial performance representation. Reference format: a 30-Unit project, using either raw land or developed lots as described in the FDD. External benchmarks: May 2026 U.S. median new-home sales price; 2024 NAHB single-family sales-price breakdown; 2024 BLS construction-manager wage data. Date checked: July 13, 2026.
Estimated annual pre-tax residual after benchmark operating costs and modeled recurring franchise fees.
U.S. Census Bureau median for new houses sold in May 2026; not an Epcon Communities sales figure.
NAHB 2024 national survey average, before income taxes, based on 41 usable builder responses.
Tiered by calendar-year Unit closings, subject to a $3,000 minimum per Unit.
BLS 2024 median wage for construction managers in residential building construction.
What does the 2026 Epcon Communities FDD actually disclose about earnings?
It discloses no revenue or earnings performance. Item 19 states that the franchisor makes no representation about a franchisee’s future financial performance or the past financial performance of company-owned or franchised outlets. That means the FDD supplies no official Average Unit Volume, median sales, gross profit, operating profit, EBITDA, net income, cash flow, owner salary, or owner distributions (2026 FDD, Item 19, p. 62).
The strongest same-brand evidence is therefore structural rather than financial: the FDD defines a residential development system, a 30-Unit investment illustration, a tiered Point of Closing Royalty, a monthly Marketing Program Fee, owner-participation rules, and a potential 60-month project-completion deadline. Those facts can anchor a model, but they cannot establish what an existing franchisee actually earned.
The modeled gross home-sale revenue ranges from about $2.55 million to $6.37 million. None of that revenue is presented as owner income. Land, vertical construction, financing, overhead, marketing, sales commissions, franchise royalties, and other project costs must be paid before a residual is available to the owner.
Does Item 20 provide a usable performance sample?
No. Item 20 reports 80 franchised outlets and 25 affiliate-developed outlets in its company-owned outlet table at the end of 2025, but these are system-count records, not an earnings cohort. The FDD also explains that a franchised “outlet” represents a signed Franchise Agreement and corresponding Market Area Agreement or agreements, rather than a standardized mature store. No reporting sample, average, median, quartile, or percentage-achieving threshold is provided for financial performance (2026 FDD, Item 20, pp. 62–66).
How is the annual owner-earnings range calculated?
The estimate multiplies annual home closings by a public U.S. price benchmark, applies an external pre-tax builder-profit margin, and then deducts recurring FDD fees not included in that benchmark. The calculation is reproducible, but each result remains a scenario rather than a forecast.
- Revenue anchor
- $424,900 per home, the U.S. Census Bureau median sales price for new houses sold in May 2026. It is a national benchmark, not an Epcon Communities price.
- Closing pace
- 6, 10, or 15 homes per year. Six annual closings correspond to a 30-home reference project completed over five years; 10 and 15 closings imply three-year and two-year sales cycles. These are editorial assumptions, not FDD distributions.
- Profit benchmark
- NAHB reported average builder profit of 11.0% of sales price before income taxes in its 2024 Construction Cost Survey. The scenarios use 8.0%, 11.0%, and 14.0%, a transparent sensitivity band of minus or plus 3 percentage points.
- Franchise fees
- The model deducts the applicable Point of Closing Royalty and $625 monthly Marketing Program Fee for one project. It does not subtract the Item 7 startup investment as an annual expense.
- Earnings definition
- Estimated pre-tax owner earnings are the modeled residual after normal builder costs and recurring franchise fees, before personal income taxes and financing principal. The NAHB margin already reflects its reported lot, construction, financing-cost, overhead, marketing, and commission categories. Hired management is assumed within overhead; owner labor is excluded from the manager-run result and added only in the owner-operator comparison. Depreciation and capital expenditures are not separately identified or adjusted.
| Scenario | Annual closings / revenue | Profit proxy before franchise fees | Estimated pre-tax owner earnings |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Conservative 8.0% margin assumption |
6 / $2,549,400 | $203,952 | $145,464 |
|
Base 11.0% NAHB benchmark |
10 / $4,249,000 | $467,390 | $379,159 |
|
Upside 14.0% margin assumption |
15 / $6,373,500 | $892,290 | $770,067 |
Estimated manager-run pre-tax owner earnings per active project-year.
Interpretation: Base is a central scenario, not a forecast. Sources: 2026 FDD, Items 6 and 17; Census May 2026 data; NAHB 2024 study. Formula: closings × $424,900 × margin − royalty − $7,500.
How are the FDD royalty tiers applied?
The Point of Closing Royalty falls as cumulative calendar-year closings rise. The first six Units are charged at 2.0% of gross sales price, Units 7 through 12 at 1.75%, and Units 13 through 24 at 1.50%; lower tiers apply above 24 closings. The resulting royalty is $50,988 in the conservative scenario, $80,731 in the base scenario, and $114,723 in the upside scenario.
The FDD also requires a $2,000 Minimum Monthly Royalty in a month when no Unit closed in the preceding month. However, the FDD states that eligible franchisees receive a year-end refund of Minimum Monthly Royalty payments when annual Point of Closing Royalty payments exceed $24,000 and the franchisee is not in default. All three scenarios exceed that threshold, so the annual model records no net Minimum Monthly Royalty expense, while recognizing that the payments may create an interim cash-flow requirement.
How can active owner involvement change the result?
An active owner may capture both business profit and the market value of management labor. Item 15 says the owner is not obligated to participate personally, but the franchisor recommends direct owner participation. If requested, the project must be under the direct supervision of a full-time, approved Director of Operations.
The manager-run range treats normal management expense as embedded within the NAHB overhead and general-expense benchmark. If an owner personally performs a full-time construction-management role that would otherwise be paid, a conditional labor-value overlay is approximately $91,150 per year, the 2024 BLS median wage for construction managers in residential building construction. BLS excludes self-employed workers from the wage estimate, so this is a replacement-labor proxy—not an owner salary disclosure and not passive profit.
This comparison assumes the management position is an expense in the manager-run case and fully avoidable in the owner-operated case. The NAHB survey does not isolate owner compensation or manager payroll, so the owner-operator benefit has lower confidence than the manager-run residual.
The owner-operator value adds $91,150 of modeled labor compensation to each residual-profit scenario.
Interpretation: $91,150 is labor value, not passive profit. Sources: 2026 FDD, Item 15, pp. 46–47; BLS wage data.
What uncertainty matters most in this earnings estimate?
Local project margin is the dominant unresolved variable. A $424,900 national median price does not establish the price mix of an Epcon Communities project, while the NAHB 11.0% pre-tax profit share is based on 41 usable responses for typical single-family homes—not age-targeted attached or detached Epcon designs, a specific market, or a franchised developer.
- Home price: regional demand, design, square footage, options, incentives, and product type can move realized sales prices far above or below the national median.
- Land and site work: raw-land acquisition, developed-lot pricing, entitlements, utilities, impact fees, grading, and infrastructure can change margin materially.
- Closing pace: the 6-, 10-, and 15-closing cases are analytical development schedules, not observed Epcon Communities averages or probabilities.
- Financing: the NAHB benchmark includes a 1.5% financing-cost category, but the model does not reproduce a buyer’s actual interest rate, draw schedule, guarantees, lender fees, or principal amortization.
- Project overhead: staffing, model-home operations, warranty work, insurance, technology, accounting, homeowner surveys, training, and required programs may differ from the benchmark or arise irregularly.
- Owner compensation: salary, draw, distributions, retained earnings, and the value of owner labor are distinct. Personal income taxes are not estimated.
The article’s earnings figures are operating scenarios, not cash distributions after loan principal. A project can report positive accounting profit while producing limited owner cash during heavy land-development or construction draws. Item 10 does not supply standardized buyer financing terms that would support one universal debt-service calculation.
Why is the evidence-confidence rating limited?
The range relies materially on external national benchmarks and editorial scenario spreads. The current FDD is strong evidence for legal entity, format, obligations, fees, owner role, and outlet counts, but it supplies no same-brand financial numerator, denominator, reporting period, sample size, distribution, or mature-project cohort. The NAHB and Census inputs are authoritative for their stated purposes, yet neither measures Epcon Communities franchisee economics.
What should a buyer verify before relying on any earnings range?
Verify project-level records with current and former franchisees rather than treating this model as a substitute for due diligence. Item 20 and Exhibit N are designed to identify franchisees who can explain actual closings, prices, costs, staffing, financing, and distributions.
- Ask for the exact 2026 Item 19 language and written substantiation for any separate oral, slide-deck, spreadsheet, or email earnings claim.
- Request annual Unit closings, average selling price, cancellations, incentives, and construction-cycle data for comparable completed and active projects.
- Separate finished-lot cost, vertical construction, infrastructure, financing, overhead, marketing, commissions, warranty, and franchise fees.
- Confirm whether owner salary or a Director ofOperations wage is already included in operating expenses before adding an owner-operator labor value.
- Review Minimum Monthly Royalty refund eligibility, Point of Closing Royalty aggregation across projects, and all recurring Marketing Program obligations.
- Reconcile accounting profit to cash distributions after land-development draws, construction debt principal, retained working capital, and tax reserves.
What is the strongest defensible earnings takeaway?
The strongest defensible range is approximately $145,000 to $770,000 in annual estimated pre-tax owner earnings for one active, manager-run reference project, with conditional owner-operator benefit of roughly $237,000 to $861,000 when the owner replaces a paid full-time management role. These figures are scenario-based, not official Epcon Communities results.
The most important earnings driver is the combination of annual closings and project-level pre-tax margin. The largest unresolved uncertainty is whether a specific local project’s land, construction, financing, overhead, sales-price mix, and timing resemble the national benchmarks at all. Before making a decision, a buyer should verify the 2026 Item 19 limitation, request written substantiation for every earnings claim, and reconcile comparable franchisee project statements from gross sales through owner distributions.