From Design to Completion: A Father-Son Duo’s Take on Custom Homes & Community Service

what’s the American dream right it’s a lot of times it’s the family and it’s the house that those are two of the
biggest indicators that you have lived your American
Dream all right guys welcome back mortgage daddies we got a couple of special guests today fatherson Duo
taking over the South Coast father Doo I like that you like that right I think that’s awesome you know I’ve always me
and my dad have always had a great relationship he’s always been one of my best friends so you know I love seeing you know father and son that work well
together and and are kind of you know you even since I’ve known you Dave you’ve kind of evolved your company
drastically and you guys are really uh expanding and you know if you kind of just tell us a little bit about that and
and kind of where you’ve gone with your company and what the goal is yeah I mean dynamic duo right that’s I mean that
definitely feels great um I like to say it was unsolicited so when Christian
start to get involved with the business you know and his brother as well too it’s been just like organic they want to
you know be part of it which is which is great you never you you always hear those stories of like the the the father
forcing the kids work with them and all that like twisting their arm but that’s definitely not and they’re miserable and they try to like hold the thumb over him
the whole time and it’s so great to see him passionate about this like I am like I don’t even have to like you see it
like he he goes after stuff with the initiative so I mean I could talk a whole podcast just on on Christian and
his initiative and his drive for the business is great so yeah I mean we um
you know I I don’t know I kind of veered off here but you just talk about where where we’re at right now you’re saying
or yeah so you started originally more in the design aspect of things yep so originally the business started as a
design I would offer Design Services to Art uh to builders in the area I was like a Moonlight gig I worked at lumber
yards and um I worked for two architects so I offered Design Services for you
know builders on the side it was a Moonlight gig So eventually that evolved into a a full-time business where I
hired a you know a full-time employee design we start parttime then full-time and
then um over the years from back then over the last I would say about years it’s evolved from design to design build
so over the last decade really you know really ramped up the the construction side of things which is pretty much our
our primary revenue Source but we’re still very passionate about design still to today and that first employee is
still with us he’s been with us for years now so that first designer yeah that’s C I’ve been I’ve been so proud to
talk about that lately like he’s making years in January and it’s like you don’t I mean I have some friends that
own businesses with some like -year employees but like for a small business I just don’t you don’t he that for any
business really anymore especially tough in the construction industry too it’s very tough because everyone just kind of
thinks well I’m just going to go do this on my own instead and you know why work for somebody or they you know butt heads
and they move to another company or somebody offers them a little more money to have the same guy for years and
now having your kids want to come in I think that really you know speaks volume to kind of how you run things and
obviously your personality cuz not every construction company is like that yeah and that’s been one of our biggest
struggles with hiring people is because we found in our profession like a lot of times when someone becomes so good at
something they just want to venture off whether it’s a project manager or a carpenter once a carpenter becomes good
enough he doesn’t want to work for someone anymore he just wants to open up his own little finished carpentry company or even a designer so employee
retention is so difficult in our field and employee loyalty and you’re right if
someone swoops in offers them the same type of job for a little bit more money that person’s gone you could have spent
years training them you know getting used to your system it’s said something about your culture and like what you guys stand for and your name for
somebody to stay around basically for the last years since you guys been opened really really says something
about you know the founder Dave and being a family type run business I mean
that that’s kudos to you guys because you don’t see a lot of that stuff out there that market and really um I’ll say
his name George he’s um he actually helped me evolve the business indirectly because you know he was in his s when he started working
for me and you know he was single and as you know time went on he he met his wife
got married and um he wanted to buy their first home so I’m like I really wasn’t you know providing the type of
salary that could support that to help him support his family I was supporting my family my young Sons but you know I
really had I was getting to this point in time when my employees were getting older and I’m like you know that age
comes you know experience and and there’s a value to that so I had to start venturing out into construction to
bring more Revenue to the business so once those guys took the rein of the business I could step away and I could
venture out and I started running framing jobs um you know framing houses
um you know evolving the construction side which brought more Revenue which has helped me build the business and get
it to where it is today where you know we have today we have employees we’re up to about last year um we dial back
we’re kind of restructuring how the business works but for a good reason so yeah yeah I mean I think that the design
aspect on the construction side is important because not a lot of companies offer that you know you get a sales guy
that comes out you know I went through this when I was looking at remodeling my house and it was tough like anybody that
you knew that you know really did a good job or had a really good reputation was a small crew of a couple guys maybe they
had a Helper and they’re two two and a half three years out and you’re like you know how long do I want to wait to try to renovate my house or you know do
whatever to my house so you end up having to go through a bigger company you don’t get that kind of it’s not necessarily like the greatest work but
you don’t get that design like I’m as a homeowner I’m looking for that help and that design like hey what do you think
makes the most sense like it’s not not every person that you talk to it’s what’s the cheapest you got you deal with a ton of those people don’t get me
wrong but that’s not everybody out there and to have a company where you can kind of go there and you can get that hey I’m
not going to say budget’s not an OP not an issue but at the same time like I want like I want a builder or any
contractor kind of bring me those cool ideas to say Hey listen this is something we could do not just like all
right yep you know the basics let’s wrap it up and go on to the next job that’s something that you guys obviously have kind of found your nich residential
construction is kind of the Wild West we call it so like when you like when someone wants to remodel the bathroom
they’ll just I’m going to call a bathroom remodeling contractor but the the you know larger scale construction
follows a more traditional path which is design bid permit build so that step
seems to get skipped in residential construction so you kind of a lot gets put on the Builder to design it you know
you know advocate for you help you with selections there’s a lot put on them besides building so what we do is we
bring that like larger scale format to some of the smaller jobs and we say Hey
listen you really need to start with a design sit with the kitchen designer sit with you know get plans drawn up then we
can start to back into budgets and make sure the successful for you and then go into permitting and then build so that
confusion you’re talking about happens because that’s how most residential construction projects are I’ve went
through them and it’s like yeah right we start you get kind of a quote and then all of a sudden you’re like oh we need this by tomorrow you’re like nothing is
defined what I need to go pick like fixtures I need to go pick this by tomorrow and you’re like you know where was the planning here and now you’re
like now you don’t have time to kind of make those decisions or to have somebody that talks to you about hey you know what maybe we should redesign this to
move this over here because you’re not if you’re a typical unless you have construction background you’re not
looking I would say two steps ahead right you’re just kind of figuring out what needs to happen and then as it’s happening you’re like oh wow I should
have done this I should have done that and it’s like in your industry right the people come in they’re scattered they’re all over the place right so it’s like
they don’t know where to start so we we like to keep it simple design it you know then bid it put the budget together
and permit it and then build it right like people like you know we successful business owners restaurant owners we see
them you know messing around with the order of that and they get themselves in a lot of trouble and we just try to reel them back in like listen like let’s get
this planned out invest some money in plans you know you fail to plan you plan to fail that whole statement is true you
got to plan out what you’re doing first right yeah and it’s like another thing that helps to set us apart is there a
lot of times in the process where we might be moving along and let’s say a client wanted cedar shingles they change their mind along the way or they end up
deciding ah we want to save some money and do a different type of siding because we do all this design in house if we design their house we’re able to
give them rendering show them what it would look like to put a different type of siding on their house or if they want to change the flow or the size of their
kitchen we’re able to take their kitchen plan even if it was designed by another architect and we can modify that plan
and come up with another option for them that they might like and you know we really want to make sure we’re not just building a product but we want to build
a beautiful product and something that’s just different and stands out and that you’re not going to see elsewhere and that’s really helps to set us apart
having the ability to kind of tweak that design I can definitely uh piggyback the fact that I’ve done some flips and I’ve
done some other different rehab stuff to my house and really you have the contractor come comes in he’s like
what’s your plan and I’m like yeah why you’re here like when somebody comes
into my in my office like you said they’re flustered like I don’t know like just because I’m in real estate I’m in
the business of delivering money to people right I’m not in the business of I don’t have a design bone in my body so
it’s like here here is here’s the canvas you guys tell me what to do explain it to me and then give me the options like
and I don’t find out like on some of these things until it’s like too late I’m like really is that like the best sing oh that that was the cheaper one
I’m like What’s the next one look like well it was $more for the I’m just making this up right for the whole house
I’m like for $I could have had that well what’s $give me that I’m like that fits the rest of the
neighborhood why is mine going to stick out like the sore thumb you know what I mean like I I I feel like it’s a lot like it’s similar to our industry where
you know one of the reasons why I got into this and one of the things that I kind of said when I got into this that I didn’t want to be was that loan officer
that didn’t give the options that just kind of took the file in kicked out of pre-approval didn’t talk to them about
it and just kind of said hey this is where you’re at not hey this is your options this is how you can go higher this is how you can go lower these are
what your payment looks like these are the different programs you have to give those options so that as the consumer you feel comfortable in the decision
that you made when you go under contract on the house and you get the paperwork you guys I feel like I have struggled to
find contractors that do the same kind of thing because a lot of them are still the people that are doing the work
themselves that’s the mechanics behind right we like to say we’re the quarterbacks of the situation we like to say okay well people call us say we want
to build a house and they say well do you have land and like well yes okay well is it you know approved buildable
and then we’ll say okay well they’ll de no no it’s not or all right you need to work with the survey we’ll give them
survey or they go work with and then they’ll connect with them we’ll stay in touch with them through the process and we say you know call us if you have
questions we’ll we’ll point point you in the right direction we’re not even working for these people yeah we’re just offering them Insight that hopefully
when they get closer we can help them now we can start budgeting what’s the cost per square foot what’s your budget
what we divide that back into what how square footage can we build for you you know so those those being the
quarterback is kind of what we pride ourselves on and that’s the mechanics of it like yeah we have a passion for
design and you know building great projects but the mechanics and the inside of it is the systems that
Christian’s talking about we have those in place you know for for those
situations you know and then um I forgot go ahead sorry no no you’re good talk
about a little bit I know we were talking about before the show came on Christian you hit kind of and it’s now just sitting in my head and resonating
is the amount of people and the different job types that they all have like you said something earlier like hey
the owner’s wearing the tool belt going everything budgeting the job doing the materials like doing all that you guys
have separate people to do all of these jobs so everybody’s doing their job they know what the the left hand’s doing the
right hand exactly yeah we we have a we have an entire team established a lot of times and and no
diss to them because we hire a lot of these guys but you know a lot of times you have that tool belt or that dashboard contractors what we like to
refer to them as where they’re keeping track of all of these orders they’re coordinating all the work that’s going
to be happening there they’re potentially working back and forth to the bank and they’re also swinging a hammer and so we call them a dashboard
contractor because all the invoices are on their dashboard how can you keep track of all of that stuff at once that’s why those guys usually only build
one maybe two projects at a time they’re us some months out it’s you know it’s it’s this long time frame for us we have
an entire process and team that we’ve established because building a home especially like a new construction home
from the ground up there is so many selections and it’s overwhelming and so we want to try to make that as simple
and organized as possible for them so we have a team member who’s deal he’s our project manager he’s dealing with the
day-to-day with subcontractors keeping clients updated on the schedule um on what that schedule looks like for the
week in the overall picture we have our project coordinator he’s soliciting what tile you want and once you let us know
we’re buying the tile what toilet you want we’re ordering the toilet we’re not saying hey go pick this out buy it we need it on the site by Monday we’re
doing lit God crazy we’re doing that because that can become a full-time job if you’re trying to you know sell
mortgages and also do that :my wife was like I didn’t know I was going to be a general contractor when we were renovating our house she’s like I’m
having to run to this place and try to track down things we having to make last minute decisions the night before so she
can go find it and go pick it up it’s like you know the where was the communication in this and what people don’t understand and and I’ll really
like back where you guys have because so many people want that low cost for whatever it is but they don’t understand
how much money they’re going to waste in the long run because of it they’re going to either waste their time or they’re
going to have to have things redone because there was no proper planning and you know you’re putting the cart before the horse in certain situations and
you’re having a you know rip things out I mean I had to do it in my bathroom I had to have the plumber come back rip
out the plumbing move it because they there was no planning and they’re putting it on the wrong side of the H like the wrong side of the bathroom I’m
like how could I ever get around this to turn on the shower you know those things cost me money yeah and the other the
other key the other key person in our overall team for each individual project is is our office controller or our
office manager she’s dealing with all the projections because these jobs move fast and when you start talking change
orders or cost increases or cost Savings in some areas that’s a lot to track and so people want to be able to make Ed at
decisions when they might want to upgrade the siding or change the roof from metal to asphal this there’s a lot
to keep track of so her doing Financial projections for hey this is where we’re at this is what we’re anticipating you
know that’s really helpful because some of the biggest stressors in these projects are the financials and the
choices and we have seen many times you know kind of before evolving our process the strain that it can put on people’s
marriages building your dream home and it’s like the amount of people I talk to they’re like want to kill I want to kill
my was like I didn’t think we were going to get through it and you we never want that to be someone’s exp not them running the job we have a you know I’ve
seen over the past you know years this like uptick of people that want to be their own builder a general
contractor for their own like custom home that’s never been built before they’ve never built the home before they have done a major renovation project and
they were like well you know if we don’t hire you and we run it ourselves we can you know my my Uncle Tony does
electrical I love when it say an uncle orew this guy owes me a favor and it’s like I’m like but listen like you’ve
never done this before and you’re going to take one of the most probably the biggest investment of your whole life
and you’re going to manage it like just our clients alone that we we’re sending them emails hey we need you to make a
decision on this tile we send them resources and links and addresses to showrooms most of them can’t keep up
with that like I don’t know how they how these people can keep up with soliciting bids making sure people have insurance
you know it’s just it’s a you know it’s it’s a lot I say this to every single client that walks into my office they’re
married they come in and they’re like we want to build a house I said congratulations what you should do is
each of you guys should go talk to a divorce attorney figure it out because % of the time it ends up down that
road because the job runs out of money they have to come back to me and I’m like I’m we can’t give you more money for they always leave out Landscaping
decks all of the kind of the finished work they’re out of money the bank’s like we’re not giving you any more money
you guys should have because the wife goes off or the husband it doesn’t matter right spends too much money on up
upgrades in the kitchen at the middle of the project they get to the end of the project there’s literally no money for Dax everybody’s nervous people will you
know will ask them when they either don’t decide to go with us you know and they’re moving forward their project I’ve done this I’ve kind of inquired
later like hey where you at like you know um are you on budget like did you get did you get pricing for everything
and most of the time people move forward with a construction project without even getting all their pricing in for the
landscaping for the whatever the finishes in the house they don’t even know so they they’re just just how much
money and how much they really going to end up spending you know and a lot of times we come in higher because we have
everything Christian does our estimate we’ve got towel bars mirrors shower doors appliances most of the builders
aren’t including in that but that you need to know that cuz you want I think
there’s like driving through like a new construction you don’t see the uh the
exterior lights on the house I’m like ran out of money on that project it’s been like nine months yeah and and
that’s definitely one of the big things that sets us apart too is we do our estimating in house so a lot of times one of the biggest struggles we find
with clients is they uh other contractors take forever to give them a price they’re like yeah we sent it out
like six weeks ago we haven’t gotten a price back because all these other guys are calling around to their subs they’re trying to get pricing the price is set
of plans they’re not complete prices we do all of our estimating in house so if someone gave me a set of plans we could
technically have them in estimate probably the next day if we really wanted to but most usually we have them
in within about a week of them sending us a set of plans and we run through everything our our construction process
the budget for their home where they can cut back where they can add if they wanted to add we’re estimating the
Landscaping all the finished site work we’re estimating and then everything like you said all the way down to the
bathroom mirrors because there are the it’s the little things that add up that contractors don’t add and then you’re like [ __ ] I have no fixtures in my
bathroom yeah I just bought a new house and I was I wanted to build out well we
kind of wanted you want to kind of build a house I didn’t want to build it myself trust me I want build my own
house my own house I didn’t want to build it myself for what we were looking for it was like for what was out there
you know there was anything and after going through Renovations I’m like to my wife I’m like I won’t make it like I
physically will not make it through it just having to make all the decisions because we went through such bad
experiences so I bought you know a pre-built house that was done but even just the little things you’re talking
about like the fixtures and all these things I’m like even buying it brand new it’s like all this stuff we’re spending thousands and thousands and thousands of
dollars just the bare minimum things that you don’t even think about you know you’re going to bust out your R be drill
and start installing paper towel holders and I did put a few I still got a couple of skills but you know I don’t want
to shouldn’t need to right like if you’re building a house I always try to tell my clients I’m like make sure you have a good general contractor that’s
going to run the show because if you try to do this with running your own business or going to work toI do not
want to bust out the Ryobi or the DeWalt and do anything at the end of the day like don’t call me and tell me you know
the oh we hit ledge over here I don’t really care I hope that was in your budget like for the foundation or whatever it is right like maybe we add
but just don’t call me like make it go away most projects aren’t you know the even if you invest in drawings not
everything’s predetermined right and those drawings those towel bars those mirrors those all the what Granite are
you going to go with or what you know Stone none of that’s picked out you know it’s very rare residential construction
so there’s two ways to go about it you can involve a builder very early when you’re designing with an architect or if
we are designer for that project we can do like pre-construction agreements where we’re we’re doing full estimates
while the design is evolving it’s very involved but you know requires a client to invest not only the architect but
also in the Builder in a preconstruction agreement where these two parties are working to fully put together this
picture what your home is going to cost that those are the more successful ones but it’s it’s unheard of in this area
people barely want to pay for for plans you know just let’s go online print out some plans we were talking about that
earlier it’s like we have to you know eventually learn all right we at least have to adapt them to the region and uh
a lot of stuff is left to be unknown at the early stages so Christian creates allowances allowances for all these
different products but we do it up the middle but you know clients still pick very expensive finishes someone we had
someone recently pick a a $clay soaking tub handcrafted from Australia
yeah stuff like that you know or $wall outlets versus a $W how can
you budget that from the beginning you can’t necessar what do you look at when they walk in your office what they’re wearing or what they like how do you
gauge you don’t know what’s important to somebody either so what we have to do is just say what we see across which is
common and that’s what we allow for yeah and then you know it’s really up to the customer make those decision we show
them hey this is what we allowed for this is what you chose what do you want to do and what I remember what I was
going to say earlier about how you you want to offer your clients options well we’ve been baking into our process is
all right when we send out a foundation price we say okay this is where it came in at do you want to proceed or not and
we’ve been baking into that like upgrades for instance there’s like these Foundation Coatings we can do tough and dry systems where it’s you know it’s an
upsell it’s expensive but I don’t want to miss those opportunities more as a
business but I also want to offer advanced technology advanced performance you know upgrades to these homes if they
have the the budget for it yeah it’s not common most people are pushing their budget but for the clients that we do
get that have a better budget or Craig loves upgrades yeah no I do Craig is the
perfect kid to build a house for what is this but like Bas Foundation Grand
all the add-ons I want that I mean I’m not the only person that’s like that because my thing is is I want quality
more than anything like I don’t want to replace something I don’t want to go cheap with something that that’s going to supposed to last me a long time or
whatever it is so it’s like you know I realize that like same thing like a certain pair of shoes like I’m going to buy a nicer pair of shoes because I want
the quality or a nicer pair of jeans or whatever it is and that when you’re building a house it’s like I just found
I struggled to find that person that was going to they not giving you those choices you don’t know you don’t know
about it did it all yeah I’m like oh well you know oh yeah did all this that
that person could even keep up with what he was doing he was just trying to just get by every day like the dashboard
contractor we call it belt and suspenders like that guy’s wor should be work focusing on craftsmanship and we
hire a lot of people like that we hire you know the the belt and suspenders guys and we manage all the other aspects
for them we have our own on staff carpentry as well too but when you’re building multiple large scale projects
you have to subcontract it drives me because it’s like you go buy a car right and you say you’re picking out you’re
ordering a car here’s the base here’s all these like why don’t you get that when you do you know certain jobs you
know what the big difference is and uh the building industry alludes to this a lot is that we’re building a oneof aind
product in the elements cars are being built in a manufactured controlled environment repetitively over and over
again so you’re it’s a lot more controlled process you know it’s more efficient there’s more opportunities to be like you know slick like that and
offer upgrades but when you’re building one-of a kind products in the middle of literally this guy framing our houses
and pouring Foundations at degrees outside you know snow Shing sow out of
the hole to concrete like it’s a tough world out there and like you know you
can’t expect much other than these guys are just trying to get it done and keep it straight and level which is why we
tried to structure our company to be able to offer those different you know upgrades and whatnot we always joke about the it’s not really joke CU it’s
true the good fast cheap method which we we refuse to do the fast and cheap because then that tarnishes your name
and we don’t want to be known for putting out cheap and products but you can’t have all three you can only have two of them right so if you want to go
fast and you want it to be good it’s just not going to be cheap and a lot of times everyone wants all three and it’s
just it’s just not possible especially in this area right we joke around about it like as soon as you like kind of even
on the mortgage side and the real estate side you get out of and I don’t want to say just sales Coast but like different pockets of Massachusetts right not just
the sales Coast there’s some other Pockets that are very similar to this or even you go around around but it’s amazing like then you call and you talk
to other clients like yeah that’s great well let’s go over the rate yeah it’s good and it’s GNA be around the market
rate yeah okay yeah ship it mik simple and they’re the easiest clients for a for us to deal
with and they getting the best product right like we’re going to do the same amount of work for everybody but it’s
less headache like I never have to talk to them like you talk to them when they need to which is very rarely um but you
just keep them inform keep them updated that’s all they want and they’re not knocking down I have a crazy question
that lady who ordered that $tub did she get beat you up on anything else in the project any other pricing
where she was like I don’t know about these wall outlets uh I wouldn’t say necessarily for that project reason
they’ve been great reason being is they’re actually working with an interior designer out of Canada so a lot
of these choices and these finishes it’s that interior designer Vision so it’s what they wanted and they
understand like hey we understand you guys gave us the you know standard price for this area and you know you’re just
keeping up with all of our selections and and getting it done and they’ve been great the the question was asked though
like how come cuz it’s it’s over budget you know the project is well over budgetting and they say well how come
you you didn’t anticipate you know like all these expenses say well none of these things were given to us none of
these we didn’t know that what tub you going to use we didn’t know what faucet fixtures none of that was provided up
front so we could price it and bake it into the budget we just provided them our allowances that most people
ever Depot or Lowe or or you know um a showroom to you know pick out you know
we’ve never utilized a tub from Australia right that’s wild that’s
awesome though and it’s great and we want to you know provide that but you’re never going to get that if you don’t involve a builder very early in the
design phase and we we were brought in after the fact actually with the second Builder because had a builder start the
project so we’re brought him way after the fact I think one of the things that makes like our day-to-day go so like I
would say smoothly and well is that is the reason behind what we do right the
reason behind what we do it’s not it’s not money driven sure there’s great money in construction but there’s also plenty of opportunity to lose a lot of
money oh yeah um funny oh yeah he learned some lessons quick he’s open up
scars right now he’s about to open up some gashes but um it’s it’s the drive
behind wanting to give people what their forever dream has always been what’s the American dream right it’s a lot of times
it’s the family and it’s the house that those are two of the biggest indicators that you have lived your American dream
and so to be able to provide one of those one of the biggest reasons that people come here in the first place um
it’s really special and like especially for me I take care of all of our measuring so for all of the existing
homes that we do plans for I measure all of them and then I do all of our construction estimating so I’m one of
the first points of contact and I’m one of the first employees in the business who works with them so I really think that people feel a lot of confidence in
a company when they see a familiar face throughout the entire process although I’m not their project manager I’m not
their project coordinator they’re seeing my face throughout the entire thing from the first meeting to go over their
project all the way till the end when we do a final walkth through and we thank them for the project you know and that’s
kind of a part of the evolution too because we would design only and then we’d either refer Builders or the
clients would have Builders and I remember like years ago seeing like when we weren’t building buing it were just designing and I would see like these
Builders fumble and like things go all kinds of sorts of crazy and I’m like and I would just think a I’m leaving money
on the table by not being like hey if you don’t have a builder can I price this project for you I’m a licensed
Builder um and then B just you know offering that you know what you know
back in the day people call you a briefcase contractor you’re not wearing a tool belt you know you’re not really you just you’re just marking up
everybody’s um servic making money on everybody no that’s not yeah that’s just an ignorant statement like we we run our
company like a Light commercial construction company where we have a project management team so I wanted to
bring that I saw like other companies bigger companies in the area I said I want to follow that model and bring it
to the residential side but also you know obviously off offer it for the like commercial commercial and Industrial
project so we do that type of work as well too we’re not just in the residential realm so you know that’s
kind of where it evolved from is like offering that you know full service yeah H now what what are you
guys plans for the future because you got two kids that are rearing to take
over the family business it seems like and I’m sure there’s no pulling back or slowing down at this boxing ring boxing
ring for the two kids who’s taking over Dad’s Empire the simp the simple terms I’ll let him discuss like where his like
where where he sees it but for like the overall vision is you know we’re design build we design and we build a lot of
our projects but half of them are other architects other designers projects I’m really my big Vision this year in next
couple years to open our relationships with other Architects to open the door with that and um just develop those
relationships to get their projects some of the greatest homes we’ve designed I’ve been from other other designers
other other Architects so we want to get more of that type of you know going on not we’re not just just building our own
projects so yeah that’s that’s big part of that with that would come increased
Revenue yeah yeah I I think the overall I I never want to you know and
we’re both of the same understanding that we never want to grow too large where we feel like they might get to a point where we have to start laying guys
off if work comes slow we always want to stay in a place where our our people we
all feel like a family we don’t feel too big Everyone likes each other everyone’s paid well and we just put out a great
product so you know we’d love to double what we do we probably have about nine
active construction projects right now um so we’d love to add some project managers to the staff but other than that we want to keep it at a manageable
size where we all can just you know comfortably do what we do and it’s not got rock stars right now we want to
keep it you know smaller but like like Christian said everyone’s paid well with you know doing like higher ticket jobs
more high-end U more challenging is that going to be a focus for you guys more on the higher end stuff it always has been
but it’s it’s something you have to work towards you know you don’t fight Mike Tyson the first time unless you’re Jake
Paul but that’s a different story think about it like unless Mike Tyson’s slowly dying yeah can’t stand up hey for $
million I’ll get work your way up to that fight you know and it’s like it’s especially in con we have a portfolio
you go to our website you we have the projects now you can see we’ve done it so it’s like I didn’t have those years
ago and I’m not going to fake it there is contractors out there where they’re using like stock images on their website like that’s not us buil the same house
all our stuff is legit yeah absolutely and we’ve been getting better at documenting that putting out you know
different like um you know like uh videos and that’s important I mean especially in this day and age you know when you start
looking at a company you’re going to look at their social media Pages or you’re going to look at their websites and see what they have to offer and see
what kind of projects and hey look you know I love this bathroom these guys did they’re going to call you you know that’s a huge huge part of it you know
where I think that’s definitely going to be a great you know a great piece for you guys with with that that you have
going on now and you guys see on the lending side too one of the biggest struggles that I’ve at least found is that there is no raw buildable land
available right now there there’s like none for people so those who want to build their custom dream home it’s it’s
so hard to find especially at an affordable price point to be able to build the dream home you buy a piece of
land in darmouth for then you want to build this beautiful custom home which could be looking at to a million
dollar now you’re all in $ million for your dream home like that’s a big price tag but those pieces of land
are so hard to come across cuz a lot of it is the large parcel of being bought to pre subdivisions in which are all
just a bunch of spec cookie cutter homes which knows diss to those because we design them and and we’ve built them um
but it’s just it’s so hard for people to find that land you know yeah now do you guys are you guys building homes on your
own kind of to fill in gaps we so this year we did two we’re trying to yeah
trying to find the land this year we did this year we did two so we did a there was a fire damaged
home that we tore on to the found we rebuild this we rebuilt a brand new new construction
home we uh we’re under agreement going to be closing at the end of the month that job we own that land for two years
we are set to make next to nothing on that project and that’s at our Pure cost
then we recently did another project recently where we bought a split level home with a partner and renovated it
created this beautiful product because again we’re not in the market we’re not in the world of creating cheap products so we put out something good and
beautiful we created a beautiful product and we just got an offer today and once we balanced all the expenses from the
construction project the holding costs real the commissions yeah nothing I feel
like that’s you know you guys are learned the lesson of why a lot of Builders either renovate for people who want to spend the money to have that
nice product or build the house for them they don’t care about the budget or they get the spec builders that build houses
for a third of what you guys probably I’ll always do it but you know I think the big thing you know I’ve Built Homes
before and you know to sell and you know I’ve made minimal profits and I’m and I’ve we’ve been more successful building
for clients for you know custom homes for clients um but you know this time around with these more recent projects
Christian is discussing you know the interest rates definitely took a big bite out of that profit you’re holding
you’re building for months eight months and you’re paying you know % on that money you know at the end of the
day the bank’s getting $for just letting you borrow money it’s like that’s that was my cash you know
you they’re taking the profit so it’s like we’re doing all the risk all the work and and the bank is making the most
money in this whole deal there’s something wrong with the with the industry right now and it’s showing it’s
showing right now permitting in the towns like how you just see the War Stories that’s why I’m like I’m sure it didn’t take you guys two years to build
it yeah it was permitting and everything else that was part of it too yeah cuz that one of the particular projects we
had such as a struggle with the building department that we had to you know file complaints up in Boston we we got
awarded you know you know um judgments on them and eventually no compensation for that though there’s no compensation
which is crazy in my opinion there’s so this is this this is the thing that’s so crappy about it when it comes to building departments is the way Mass
General law is written it states that even if a Building Commissioner is wrongfully delaying a project against
Mass law and the building code and whatever it may be that they cannot be held civil liable so how do you hold
someone accountable for doing something wrong they know they’re doing something wrong and there’s no accountability to
it those are the jobs I want when I retire yeah yeah that’s I don’t have to show up I don’t have no Rhyme or Reason you just yeah not today so we had a
project where we’re now underway for it but we had a project where it was this family they were going to be tearing down their um their their
mother-in-law’s home they’re going to be rebuilding a new house on the property with an Adu and accessory dwelling unit attached to it um and creating this
generational piece of property that now they’re all going to live in together to help with the mother Aging in place help with the baby that they want to have
come on the way the building department instead of taking days to issue the permit took days they took four
times the legal limit so we went St about the building department totally in it was one person that was in charge of
the building department so there’s a lot of great people in lot of these departments but it was one particular person that really
held it up and then but then even like Town administrators and those who are in charge of those they they don’t do anything about it so that that client
lost their financing in that time frame because it took so long and an interest rates spiked in that time time frame
they they lost it so it delayed their project over a year so now here we are
about we finally broke around on their project but it delayed their wedding dreams it delayed their life dreams their cost has gone way upost went way
up yeah real world yeah yeah and then like like civil wise like money the only
way that they that they could see their money back would be if they hired an attorney for $which who
casually has that laying around to hire an attorney to fight somebody which you might not even win or you might get a settlement of $do you know hey sorry
this happened so this yeah yeah it’s tough so we go to bat you know for our customers like we we we actually we on
on the radio we pushed back with the building department and we we got movement but it’s like it was too too
little too late but you know that’s the thing you know when you when you work with us is quarterback we mean it like
we’re going to point you in the right direction we’re going to help you throughout the whole process and that’s a you know an unfortunate circumstance
we could only help them so much but we are building for him it’s we’re under the way finally so hopefully the interest rates work out for them well
they locked in still kind of high but High you know low enough to to move it forward and once it’s done they’ll do
their refy and they’ll they’ll be fine I’m sure now is there anything being done or are you guys looking into doing
anything to help make that process easier in the future or any type of you
know actual hurt that can be caused to the other side if that happens so we we’ve
tried uh the amount of detailed it is crazy if I went through my email the amount of detailed summarized emails
that we’ve sent to select boards and town administrators or mayor mayoral offices or city council people breaking
down different projects where the balls have been dropped hey we called this building inspector five times over the
last two weeks and we haven’t received a call back nothing nothing changes nothing no matter how when you come that
week well you think he wants to pick up the it’s like yeah we put together reports hard we’ve offered to sit on
committees to help like structure guidelines for the building departments because we’re very well versed when it
comes to building code it’s just and the movement to the town departments what’s happened over the more recent years is
what they you pull a building permit and the town says okay before I even I’m sorry the building department before
they process they say Okay tax collector look at this permit did they pay the taxes okay if it didn’t it’s not going
to advance past that part so you got to go and pay your taxes which is I get that one that’s a legitimate one but you
know historic commission’s got to look at it all these different departments DPW have to look at the permit before
then it gets processed so a lot of times the wrong departments are included in these submittal that don’t even need to
be involved you know it’s not my opinion it’s it’s just they don’t need to be involved so we we’ve offered to help
streamline that and you know in the towns that we have been working in especially darmouth they’ve they’ve made improvements for sure I’ve been laughed
at when I walk in select board meetings like I’m there to help like improve his system and just like like laugh it’s
like you know TR the the the common threat I hear
throughout you know appeal boards and towns is no one wants to set precedents no one wants to be like make that major
change no one and I think it’s a a symptom of our world where’re so heavily
regulated you guys in a very regulated you know realm like everything’s so heavily regulated nobody’s got the guts
to like make decisions on their own blow it up like just just make a decision like you know what I don’t really you
know I don’t need to go through all these little steps but let’s help you move how can I help you that’s what
we’re looking for when we go to a town hall or a city hall how can I help you with this project you don’t got to roll
the red carpet out for me but like it instead of instead it feels like I like to say how can I get in your way yeah
and how can I be a Narcotics agent and you’re the drug dealer because that’s what it feels like they spend more time going out writing
violations try find issues of not at the end of the day you’re a paying customer you’re paying to get the permits you’re
paying to go through process the consumer that you’re hired from is a taxpayer you guys are paying like the
whole not to dwell on the negative side but we’ve put systems like years ago we’d be like all right we’ll just kind
of work with them and maybe they’ll help us out that doesn’t work anymore so we’ve kind of kind of put our foot forward like we’re kind of not afraid to
to speak up and show them in the law where they’re violating it really early and we’ve kind of become that face of it
which is fine I didn’t want to go there that’s good now
that says you got to process this and this amount of time just you know politely but it’s kind of like politely like you know better move hey you know
what I’ll give you those days maybe I could have got it faster but I’m not going to risk and that’s that we just we want to we just want to build
great projects you know we want to get to that part let’s get to that part we don’t want to have to focus on being attorneys or being Banks and having to
float these projects we want to just focus on great things do you do and one of my you know everyone always has like
their New Year’s resolutions I don’t really play by the whole resolution game I I more so like to have like New Year goals or like focuses so like one of my
focuses has been especially because it’s been so discouraging over the last year or two dealing with these tals trying to make change you know I was working with
Dartmouth trying to get them to sell the old police station to create housing there instead of just tearing it down um
my goal is become you know what instead of fighting these people instead of trying to actually make change working
with select boards whatever it may be to do it on my own and so that’s why like you know we’re members of the South Coast business Alliance we raise money
for at risc you throughout the area we’re we’re in the process of we’re going to be developing a couple
fire stations in New Bedford and to create some market rate housing in those fire stations so and instead of instead
of trying to create the change we’re trying to be the change in our own ways where we don’t need the permission of a select board and you know just that’s
that’s my goal for this year it’s a great goal because we were talking about like man the effort we put in to fighting this one permit like we just
have to choose we should just we got to next time choose something like a bigger cause or like approach it because the
amount of work to solve a small problem is often the same work to solve a big a bigger problem so just the way you
approach it so that’s a great you know strategy he’s got there for sure you guys do a lot of great work in
the community with Sal Coast business Alliance I see you guys you guys just broke some records right you guys just had one of the biggest October Fest
record Year great job yeah it’s cool I mean I I I grew up going to October Fest
as a kid and there’s actually a picture of me and my brother walking around I think um did like a color run and me and my brother holding like the nth annual
ual October Fest flyer trying to sell tickets I think this year was the th annual years ago years ago so it it’s
cool going from being a kid seeing the event then like helping with the garbage at the event to then becoming a member and then last year or for the most
recent October Fest I was the co-chair with Chris for zenes for October Fest um and then my Dad recently became a
Meritus so he you were in the group for years dedicated years to the group all that time you know the membership
dues the contributions to the Legacy fund which is a fun for if we’re ever not a thing anymore it’s this fun that
generates money every year that can be donated out to the community yeah exactly it’s it’s uh it’s really
incredible there for five years yeah I did I did like five years couldn’t get to the ameritus I mean it’s a great
group I mean I had a lot going on I just started family and start having kids but
uh yeah man I don’t I don’t know how you’ve grown up around it and then you Dove right into it speaks to your
character cuz he’s a key member listen to some of those nights where you might have had a few Tails while you’re while
you’re celebrating from just I know you did a lot with um oh my God Nick Francis
another guy right getting it all set up the day before all the permitting and everything goes I still am even being a
merius like this year I was still very involved with and I plan to continue to be um you know just I might not go to
Every meeting monthly meeting but I’m still want to you know as a member I’m just not vice president you know Craig
buja stepped in as vice president now and Chris rendi he’s been in my opinion the the best president of the
organization we’ve ever hadr is a great guy you guys are he’s taken it like it’s like his own business baby like just
he’s just crushing passate about it too like he’s always talking about it but senior dad in all those years of
carrying trash at like so if you saw that when you were or and you still followed in those footsteps
cuz that’s like the worst two hours we got a great story is actually his brother Logan his -year-old brother Logan we were at one of the events it
was when we were inside the state Pier inside the building and we had a corle board set up and he was playing and he
celebr he was celebrating he got like a good shot and he tripped over an electrical CT on the ground and he fell
back and he I guess he broke his arm the EMT said that he broke his arm so we had to go to the hospital yeah and uh we
went to the hospital I have a picture of him the two of them in the bed and he’s got the cast on with the October Fest
shirts and we actually went back and he and he worked the event with the broken arm and that’s wild awes they’ve been
down since day one like yeah that’s a great group you guys and I I really feel
like in order to love what you do in life you have to you have to do something that’s in line with your passions but you also have to have like
a reason everyone has a why I’m sure you have a why for why you why you guys are in the lending you know environment the
re my one of my biggest why’s aside from creating people’s dreams homes is is
helping those who have had it worse than me right that’s that’s always been the thing that’s gotten me through different
things growing up my parents weren’t together yes I work with my dad now we have a great business together but it
wasn’t easy growing up in a split household for many different reasons and what got me through it was knowing that someone had it worse than me so my goal
was always to help those who had it worse than me once I was able to and so I feel like I have to pay it back some
way you know that we’re blessed for our business and for plenty of other things in our life and so the SCBA giving back
to those kids who come from horrible circumstances or going through terrible things like that is that helps me
fulfill my why and that helps me just go on with my dayto day at risk and that’s as you know what we donate to at risk
youth it’s not you know it’s really if you if you want to if you want us to help out it has to be with that you know
and we it’s it’s a very powerful group because the amount of effort we put in no one’s a paid member no one’s a paid
board member nothing everyone we all pay we pay dues to be part of the group actually I don’t have to pay anymore because I’m Meritus ch’s paying double
great no you know what’s messed up is I was the first Junior member and this year I’m the first like full member even
though I’ve been the secretary and the co-chair at this point so Myer dis doesn’t start until now I’ve been a member for years so I got to do
another y you know it’s okay they want you for another that’s why like listen I don’t want to hear it because I was involved for six years before I the
years so I’ve actually been involved the group for yearses because Christian far was trying to get me to get I’m like listen I got young kids I
got too much going on right now I’m starting my business you know so um but eventually you know I made membership
and it was it’s been great and yeah it’s a great organization it’s like like I
said the amount of effort this year they broke records Christian’s now the chair of October Fest this year he was
co-chair with Chris rendes but uh they broke records with like you know everyone Chris pushing everyone to get
sponsorships it’s a huge event I mean it’s massive huge great music I’m actually curious cuz I just said that I
have my why and I asked you guys I said that you guys have yours what what are your wi why do you enjoy the field that
you’re in you’re not used to being asked the question uh yeah mortgage daddies to the
rescue here we got contract daddies oh god um it’s fine so uh you know what I
did before I started lending was I was a firefighter paramedic so I was always helping people and when I started doing
this I felt like you know I’m helping people in a different way there wasn’t a lot of Education from what I could see
from other guys at my fire department other people who were buying houses when they were getting into a house or knowing what was going on so when I when
I took this on and and I started to do this I really kind of wanted to be somebody that did this a little bit
different than everybody else I wanted to spend that little extra time with somebody make them feel comfortable like I was talking to you guys about how I
feel when I do with certain people in construction or whatever like I I as a consumer want to feel comfortable with the choices that I’m making and I want
to understand the process I wanted to make sure that I could give that back to the consumers that I’m working with and
really help them and there’s nothing that makes me happier when you get those calls or texts from these people that have been trying to buy a house for so
so long and they are like crying and telling you how much they how happy they are that the dreams that they’ve had and
it’s like I almost feel like I get that more now than when I was rushing into a burning building or pulling somebody out or doing CPR because you’re in and out
you don’t have those longer term relationship like I have relationships now with these people for years and years and years after so it’s a
different way of helping people but at the end of the day I’m still helping people providing service and important service you know there’s really not a
big difference besides just how I’m doing it and you’re we we say how how we’re involved in making the biggest and
and helping people with the biggest investment they’re ever going to make in their life for the most part and you’re in that same boat as us you know just in
A’s a lot more stress you know and I didn’t I don’t like the way that some people in this business look at it like
they don’t care I care probably more than most people doing it themselves even care about it because I want this
to go through for them I want it to be as painless as possible sometimes there’s things out of everybody’s control but it’s how you handle those
situations and it’s how you kind of can you know relay that news or or that disappointment or you know to can kind
of handle the situation where we become more of a counselor at times where you know I think some of the things I did in the past help me with that piece of it
but you know really it’s it’s just helping people and and making sure that you know people are happy at the end of
the day and whether it’s and it’s everybody in that like people don’t understand how much stress there is in a transaction never mind building a house
with deadlines and everything but just a normal transaction people are planning on moving they have mover set up they
have you know they’re taking days off of work and for you to get a call the day before the two days before saying oh you
know what something happened we’re not you know and and to not even care is is mind-blowing to me right now where
people like we experienced this today more recent deals is where you have like
people aren’t aren’t um they’re not buying a home until they have the their current home sold so it’s like they’re
not jumping out of that house got waterfall effects so we call it waterfall deals so you know and sometimes it’s two three four of them
we’re doing that right now three it’s like two or three legs in that you know
because of the luckily with you know the business that that we’ve been able to build and the trust with this area we a
lot of the transactions in this area so we a lot of those legs and it’s like it just is terrible when there’s that one
leg that’s holding up the whole thing and it’s you know it’s typically it’s poor communication it was you bad
pre-approval to start but poor communication throughout the process where something could have been fixed that is causing a huge delay because
somebody’s afraid to pick up the phone or afraid to tell them what’s really going on or they don’t know what they’re like you shouldn’t even have put him in
that position to begin with you know you want to be that yes man is what I always think like I get these realter all the time that talk to me and they want a
pre-approval yesterday that doesn’t necessarily happen every time and that’s not necessarily the best thing for your
client because when this happens who you mad at you’re mad at everybody and you all look stupid about the situation when
if you would have took a little bit more time and done the homework and made sure that that was actually going to work you’re never going to put your client in
that situation and that’s what I want to do and what we try to do a milestone versus what a lot of other people kind
of in this business just want you as a realtor to love me so I’m going to say yes and give you a pre-approval in two seconds and give you whatever you want
Christian that’s not always the case I can’t always do that and I have to be there to be that person to draw the line in the sand otherwise that’s exactly
what’s going to happen be a problem later it’s going to rear its ugly head later it’s it might not bite you every time but it’ll bite you communication
and and setting expectations I read this book called managing the emotional homeowner and actually we ended up going to a seminar I didn’t realize the
presenter was the the same gentleman that wrote that book but one of the takeaways from that is just setting
expectations very early with the client whatever industry you’re in you know um
and always communicating that’s it’s huge because clients really you know maybe it’s HGTV or maybe it’s what they
see on Pinterest they have these expectations of the process you know I’m sort of the same as in your industry you
really have to set it early we have a client expectations agreement that we besides our contract we have them sign
expectation agreement where we outline a lot of the things that Christian mentioned about good fast cheap you
can’t have all three you know if uh you know as far as like you know different expectations with communicate
communicating with us not communicating directly to our subcontractors on the job site because you might think you
told a drive wall guy you want this but then he doesn’t do it and then we didn’t make sure it got done so we have all all
these things have to be put in in in place and uh yeah communication is crucial it’s it’s one of the biggest
like one of the biggest rules in our company among all of our employees is that you have to get back to someone within hours if someone calls you and
leaves you a voicemail or an email you must get back to them within hours even an ackn if it’s a detailed email at
least hey we’re reviewing this we’re going to get back to you you know yeah I think uh you know my why has evolved and
it feels like it evolves like every two or three years at this point but I think right now like that why that gets me up
and gets me going every single day is you guys mentioned I believe it’s George who’s been with you for years uh that
actually triggered right when you said that is you know trying to build a culture for the company is very
important to me and that’s that’s really why and also to make sure that they can support their families they’re living a
good life they’re maximizing their potential right like you saw something in George that you said if I I can’t
afford to lose this guy because he’s going to keep getting better he’s going to keep learning those are the type of
things right now like that’s the why it’s the coaching it’s the building of the culture it’s kind of growing the
company that way um to sustain it right well past your retirement and you pass
it on to the next eration and the succession plan that we look forward to uh throughout our businesses is really
kind of where the why is falling these days well guys it was an absolute pleasure I look forward to having you guys on again because I feel like we
could go on for another couple hours but we might run out of tape here so all good I really appreciate you guys coming
on supporting the podcast I look forward to watching you guys grow your business and having a lot of years of success and
uh it’s really inspirational to see someone years old already jumping into uh all the nonprofit and stuff I
mean crazy that’s awesome man congratulations you guys too take a vacation will you you guys are one day
thanks guys