Q & A Episode 12 - Guiding Your Client Through The Renovation Vs. New Home Decision
Episode #12 | Q&A with Mark D. Williams | Guiding Your Client Through The Renovation Vs. New Home Decision
Mark Shares the key considerations in determining the right time to transition a client from a renovation to a new home, emphasizing the importance of long-term trade partner relationships, setting client expectations, and implementing effective communication strategies throughout the project management process.
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About The Curious Builder
The host of the Curious Builder Posdast is Mark D. Williams, the founder of Mark D. WIlliams Custom Homes Inc. They are an award-winning Twin Cities-based home builder, creating quality custom homes and remodels — one-of-a-kind dream homes of all styles and scopes. Whether you’re looking to reimagine your current space or start fresh with a new construction, we build homes that reflect how you live your everyday life.
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and this is the huge benefit of having long-term standing relationships with your trade partners because they should know better and they should know how they should handle [Music] this welcome to the Curious Builder podcast I'm Mark Williams your host today is our Q&A session and the question that was submitted by Mike Weaver and Brad Robinson shout out to them was what is the right time to steer a client from a renovation to a new home that's a great question question and I'd say for the last 20 years this has sort
00:00:35 of evolved for me um I've done a lot of remodels and I've done a lot of new homes and so obviously people have us come out to their home typically living in Minneapolis there's a lot of older homes and I'll go out there with an open mind they think it's a remodel and sometimes you drive up and you know immediately this is not a remodel either based on the condition of the home or based on the condition of what the client is asking for in some ways it gets really easy when there's just a very clear delineation like either price
00:01:07 point or the things that they're asking and one simple kind of litness test that I've done a number of times is if the homeowner can't tell me what they're keeping that's not a remodel that's a tear down that's a new home and what I mean by that is you know you'll have a client that'll come out and they'll say you know we want a uh we want a main floor owner Suite want a new mudroom we want a a back hall uh area where the kids can have some homework areas we want a sun room a new kitchen uh we also
00:01:37 want to do a uh we want to pop the top and do a second story Edition as well and you're essentially not saving anything and that is just a you know pretty easy example of that's not a remodel now I will say that with an asterisk that sometimes in some cities and some areas that can be a remodel if the governing body is so stringent on new home requirements or perh perhaps as an architectural significant home um or there's something that there's a Heritage piece of it that they are really in love with their home but it
00:02:09 might not make Financial sense but the client is on board with that because they you know they bought that home knowing that the home was something that they wanted to keep and restore so setting that aside which is a totally different type of clientele um it's really up to us to educate the client on on what they're doing and so um usually what I do is is I'll start with a budget you know what is your desired goal inevitably um people and it's really no fault of their own I mean they're not Builders they're not remodelers how
00:02:38 would they know exactly what it's going to cost that's why we're there and they'll say you know in this example you know we want a three to $500,000 budget that's a great budget I mean that's a huge huge budget right but to do all the things that I just said you know to add a second story to you know redo the entire main level and one of the problems with a remodel that I often tell our clients is if we can't contain the remodel if we can't contain the actual space then it becomes really a whole house remodel which is fine that's
00:03:07 honestly what we're the best at um the bigger the remodel probably the more efficient we become as a company my favorite remodels are a whole house remodel um sometimes I you know we're doing one right now where I would the main level we refiguring a lot of the um the layouts and taking down some walls and opening up um some areas but I would say it's probably a 30% Remodel and a 70% refresh and what I mean by that is the refresh is like new carpet you know gutting the bathrooms but really not changing them um you know updating it a
00:03:40 you know it's a 80s 90s home and they want it to look like a beautiful you know 2024 home and they're not doing any addition that is clearly a remodel uh I think when you start getting into adding spaces one of my kind of guiding principles that has probably been the easiest way to in that first meeting really get down to Brass tax on how to Ste the client is if you do more than three remodels and I'll Define what that means in a minute um it is not a remodel it is a tear down and what I refer to a
00:04:10 remodel as like a large scope of work um or project so um a kitchen is one Remodel and really a kitchen usually is a main floor remodel because usually you're opening up some walls uh you're affecting you know probably adding a bathroom if it's an older home you're you know touching a lot of trim you're probably installing all new floors and is really hard to start and stop and before you know it you've sort of updated the whole main level which is fine yeah I we want to do a design that's very intentional and that makes
00:04:41 it look like it's always been there I mean that's one of the reasons why people are even calling us in the first place is to give them this kind of advice so that's one remodel um another remodel would be any sort of addition so let's use this example let's say someone calls me and says I want to do a kitchen okay that's one remodel it's a main floor Remodel and we also want to do a sun room Edition and a mudroom Edition okay great if we can combine those two areas that's only going to count to me
00:05:06 as like one one remodel in this you know three remodel uh analogy so I've got the main floor uh kitchen and whole main level and then I have this actual addition which is you know foundation work I'm adding new square footage to this property could be basement second level as well but the rest of the house is remaining untouched um and then maybe the third remodel is by the way I also want to do either a another addition on a different part of the house that's not tied into the existing Foundation that
00:05:35 doesn't or the other addition so now we're starting to get a jigsaw puzzle together or maybe it's a rambler main level home and they're like by the way we also want a second story and I've had this happen actually many times so let me get this straight you want a second story how you want to add a second story so let's call it three bedrooms upstairs you want to add a sun room in a mudroom you want to redo the entire main level I mean you can see when I'm articulating this like what are you actually saving
00:06:00 like there's nothing you're may be saving the basement that's it and even that you probably got to open up some of the ceiling to get new work plus if you're adding all these new additions uh actual additions with foundation work most likely you are going to want to access them they're not crawl spaces so now we have to reconfigure whatever your existing basement is it is going to be cheaper and you're are going to get a much better end product by tearing that home down the hardest part is some of
00:06:25 these homes like they're pretty decent like this the family has just out grown what that house is and that's the unfortunate part and I shouldn't say unfortunate part that's just it is the reality of it and so there are certain parts of town um you know I'm sure everyone has their little you know Buzzy little towns that you know young families move to and they quickly you know they have a couple children and before they know it they've sort of they've outgrown the home and they don't know what to do I'll take like lynen
00:06:52 hills in Minneapolis for example I've lived there for 20 some years you know within a mile or two of Lynden Hills I've had three homes there and you know I I speak for myself you know the first house that we we did there uh it was actually out of college we did a small remodel no big deal second home um this is where I learned this three ruler lesson I actually did it would have been better off now the home is gorgeous and we did amazing work but we probably would have been better off tearing the
00:07:19 house down I did I broke my rule I did a uh whole whole house remodel our update I did a a rear Edition and a owner Suite off the top and I did a new garage off the back um that would have been borderline not even borderline in hindsight it would have it would have been better to just tear the whole thing down and build new now I'm very happy with the the work that we did there it's obviously gorgeous it was my own home I love what we did um but and oddly enough that home is sold like four times uh it
00:07:49 keeps selling it keeps going up in value so there still is a place but understanding that like at the time it it would have been a better value to build the new home I'm thinking back now however many years ago that house was I want to say 2017 maybe um I think that remodel off the top of my head was like five or 600,000 I'm thinking back at that time a new house would have probably cost a million so it would have cost you know 300 Grand more to build a new house so it would have been more expensive it would have been a more
00:08:16 valuable house it would have been worth more um but that's I didn't have the money at the time and so that was what I needed to do for our family and so this is really you you basically as a business owner as a builder can kind of share these examples in this case I was able to share a very personal example in relate to my young family clients and say well I struggled with this exact same thing and if I had it to do all over again I probably would have torn it down and you know a lot of times clients
00:08:43 they get they get paralyzed when they don't know what to do with this Remodel and so we're just trying to give them options and I've seen kind of everything happen on a su either go ahead with a remodel uh sometimes they will sell the home and they'll either find a bigger home or they'll build a new home with us or they'll do something that the home is more suited to a remodel because maybe their asks are just so big or maybe they're in an area that doing a you know five six $ 800 million doll remodel just doesn't
00:09:13 make Financial sense they'd be better off moving to a different community and this is really the impetus this is really the um the lightning rod that causes them to make that decision I found recently too that it is hard to get people to change their mind or to really feel a sense of urgency without um without an underlying cause and you know obviously the new ones are you know you're you're newly married you maybe you have a young family your family's growing so most people are building a home to accommodate their growing family
00:09:46 I've had some where of many that are the opposite end they're at empty nesters they're now downsizing and they want a smaller home and anyway I think the bottom line is it's really hard to build for somebody or to get someone to move ahead if they don't have some sort of underlying urgency uh especially in the current climate r with interest rates and elections and all these kinds of cycle I think that's why you see a lot of people on the fence I mean if you have to move like you're obviously moving you have to move and so the
00:10:12 question is is how great is that urgency Lake Society magazine is minneapolis's Premier target market Boutique lifestyle and design publication it embodies the unique Lifestyles and design of the Minneapolis City Lakes neighborhoods from Lake of the Isles to Lake Harriet it showcases the best in local design projects by both premier Builders Architects and interior designers in this area Lake Society magazine has the look and feel of a national publication with glossy covers high-end finishes it's mailed directly to Upper bracket
00:10:41 single family homeowners in the city Lakes area and it's the perfect local coffee table top publication subscriptions can also be available through the website Lakes Society magazine.com additionally publisher and founder Karen stle has over 27 years in the local magazine publishing industry and has a passion for high-end photography and quality Graphics her commitment to Quality visual Simplicity and Beauty are strongly reflected in her beautiful Lake Society magazine the next question is why is it important to
00:11:13 control who communicates with homeowners during the build this is a great question and I have failed at this many times sometimes on purpose sometimes not on purpose and I think the intent of this question is um you know we really invite our personal clients into to be part of our quote work family and so we have a very um warm relationship and it's what I want to do this is how I've constructed the business because this is how I want to work with my clients I don't like it to just to be a transaction um for better for worse
00:11:45 that's what I've chosen to do and so because it's very warm and it's inviting I tend to lead a lot of the communication because my name's on the on the sign it does limit me a little bit in terms of scaling obviously but I interact a lot with the client so um I think as I've gotten let's say as the homes if we get too many at one time you know obviously I want the project manager uh or the project coordinator leading some of that communication um but I think the real intent of this is you know sometimes clients if they don't
00:12:14 like the answer they're hearing they will bypass the build team the project manager and they'll go straight to the sub so they I've had it in my career I think anyone who's built long enough has probably experienced this and this is the huge benefit of having long-term standing relationships with your trade partners because they should know better and they should know how to do with how they should handle this however um you've had a client well they'll they'll reach they'll maybe go to a job site
00:12:39 where the cabinet maker is working and obviously the cabinet maker is very professional and he's very warm and inviting and of course he's interacting with the client so he knows them and of course he's going to talk with them but then the client might say hey soand so would you um how much is it to add one more closet when they start asking about costs that's when you really need to make sure that your subcontractors are aligned with you and to me even on Cost Plus jobs the the the the trade Partners
00:13:08 should never be discussing price with our clients without you know myself or without our team members present because you don't want to get into a he said she said situation and then later you have uh something you know the maybe the client you hear these crazy stories I've never had this happen where but where a client will tell a cabinet maker you know he'll say yeah it's going to be a $1,000 for you know a pantry closet uh cabinet add-on so he does it and then the Builder gets an invoice from the
00:13:38 cabinet maker and he submits it and the client's like I'm not paying that where's the paper trail and either because the Builder number knew about it uh obviously the right protocol is the cabinet maker could say you know what I will run that by the bill team they will present the information to you and then once it's approved then we'll run through our normal protocol and you know that's the point of having like Builder trend having these online portals where clients can manage their change orders
00:14:03 but it's also for the build team and for the trade Partners to be protected it's for everybody most of our clients we've been very fortunate have been very straight shooting and you know they just want a really nice home um sometimes they obviously are fishing and um you know a lot of our clients are business owners and it's nothing wrong with that it's you know they've got a little twinkle in their eye but you sort of need an experienced hand at the helm to sort of help redirect some of these questions and then bring it back to you
00:14:29 and you know I've had clients same deal with communication uh light fixtures you know I really like a certain light fixture company it's all handmade and I've had a client say um oh we know you love them uh we're just going to go buy them directly and we're just going to uh put them uh you know where we want them and we just want you to hang them what they're really saying is we don't want to pay you your GC markup or your project management fee and we just want uh but we want this anyway we want we
00:14:57 want the benefit of your professionalism the benefit of your brand the benefit of your relationships but we want we don't want to pay you for it or we don't want to pay you more than we think we should and that is a tricky Nuance of a thing I spoke about that I think last week in our Q&A about the the strength of relationships with your vendors and why it's important to have them um and so again that takes experience I think that takes um it's a it's a bit of a Nuance you have to you know the tact uh you
00:15:22 know making an making a point without making an enemy with your client because you want them to get what they want but you also have to respect for sort of say no and redirect them down the communication path that is accurate and I won't go into it at length this one on lighting because I did that last week but uh another one would be uh with communication why we keep a bi-weekly meeting with our clients so what that means is every two weeks we meet at with the entire team you know and we'll we'll
00:15:51 make the call that week of Who's involved so we're doing a remodel right now and every two weeks on Friday morning at 9:00 a.m. we meet with a client and we'll cancel the meeting two days ahead of time if we have nothing to discuss sometimes there's downtime especially on a remodel maybe we're waiting for permitting and maybe there's nothing to discuss or maybe it's during drywall or painting or whatever and we just we can just wait um but you know we'll say we we'll have the architect on it the interior designer on it we'll
00:16:19 have um you know maybe we want to bring a cabinet guy in because he wants to get cabinets approved or maybe we want to bring in a landscape or we just have it on everyone's calendar and then it leaves our team up to managing it I have found that to be extremely helpful um at controlling The Narrative of communication especially our higher end clients that are very busy and are getting inundated with emails you know our team wants to build their home but if they can't get a hold of the client or their attention that's a problem and
00:16:46 we also don't want to just be kind of you know like a woodpecker just kind of pecking the client with questions all the time it'd be nice to sort of assemble all your questions and then every two weeks meet with them and say hey here's the list of all the things we need to cover and can we get your feedback on that and there is we also try to create an agenda where we'll send it to them the day before not too much time but you know a day or two before so they know kind of what we're going to be
00:17:10 talking about so at least it's on their mind that has been extremely helpful I wish I would have done that earlier on my career I mean I certainly met with my clients for you know cabinet walkthroughs electrical walkthroughs we did all of that but I sort of like the steady Cadence I find that not only does it help the client understand when they're going to meet with you it sort of cuts down on the emails and the phone calls not that they can't call us or email us of course they can but it in some ways by you assembling all your
00:17:37 questions and waiting for that time they sort of do the same and so then those meetings become very productive and they also are very essential it also is always pretty much better to be in person for a lot of these discussions because you can get through a lot more information and so I've really appreciated those um you know th those meetings uh I would say another thing that's been really helpful in terms of communic communication is every Friday we have our project manager send just a little note if there's in Builder Trend
00:18:05 like a daily log and it'll just say we we do a recap and a look ahead so you know this week you know there was Framing and there was some electrical work some of the hvc uh was installed you know next week we're going to need uh sign offs on tile or whatever it might be and uh this is what we did this week this is what we're doing next week and it's nice because clients are so busy especially if our clients are remote or far away from the project or we had one project where the M was here but the Mis was in Oregon and so his
00:18:35 only updates were the pictures that we were posting and then these Recaps that were in there and I think that was really crucial for us you know getting the job but also keeping him informed on what was happening because he wasn't there and you know we live in a in Minnesota doesn't seem like there's nearly as many vacation homes as say you know down in the South and so I could see you know if you're a southern Builder or if you're in a community where people build vacation homes like the mountains or a ski town man having
00:19:00 having a a remote software that you can have your clients access all the pictures schedule you know we all the stuff obviously has done through Builder Trend uh which is what we use but there's a number of uh other ways you can do this as well I just find that it's nice to have it kind of in a onstop shop we're excited to announce that we've opened up another curious Collective for the last year we've had the Curious Builder Collective we now have the cures Builder Collective for designers the first ones will be
00:19:26 happening in September all the details are going to be on on our website we have 30 spots available half of them have already filled We additionally have eight spots left in the Builder Collective if you're interested in getting together in small groups of nine with local Minneapolis based Builders and designers in separate groups and talking about your business talking about your Brands asking those questions that you wish you could ask another business owner then this is the place for you details can be found at the
00:19:52 Curious Builder podcast.com trying to think of what else would be helpful in terms of communication I actually this is uh commun is really important I actually put it in my contract that our clients cannot text us for um you know for orders for change orders or direct lines of communication to make changes to their home uh texting to me is for hey we're running five minutes late or can you meet for coffee to discuss this that and another thing or hey here's a picture because you know text are work
00:20:23 really good for pictures you got to be a little careful with that too because it's harder to track those pictures I'd still prefer them in an email but and we also set the hours you know I don't want clients or my Subs you know our promise to you is you know we're not going to bother you on nights and weekends because guess what our our people have families and teams too they need to protect their time so that they can show up Monday refreshed rejuvenated and ready to go to work and and work on
00:20:46 your home and so we need that mutual respect for that the client would have you know for us just like we'll have for them they can always fire off an email you know uh one of the few things I've done a very good job of is you know I do not check my email uh nights and weekends I found a long time ago in my career that you know if I check my email right before I go to bed you know especially if it was you know a specific client or it was just sort of triggering and I didn't realize it at the time but
00:21:14 you know it affect my sleep it would be on my subconscious and like you don't need that you're going to sleep like you need to go to sleep and wake up the next day ready to go check your email then don't check your email right before I go to bed that's a terrible idea and so and then same with the weekends you know if you spend even if you don't respond to your client but you're thinking about their email all weekend have you really taken the weekend off and I think it's really important to establish boundaries
00:21:39 I've I've spoken about that many times in the podcast but you know one of my favorite quotes that you probably have heard me here hear hear me say a number of times is you know boundaries create freedom but they really really really work um you know maybe in our next Q&A I'll talk a little bit about uh Sonic camp and boot camp which are going to be very much in alignment with um you know with these boundaries creating Freedom so that's my answer to those two questions today join us on Monday for a regular uh interview
00:22:08 episode and next Thursday for a Q&A thanks for tuning [Music] in thanks for listening to the Cur Builder podcast if you like what you listen to please give us a five-star rating and write us a review it really means a lot it's a great way for us to just understand what you like about the podcast and what we can keep doing so like and review and please share with your friends and family find out more at curious Builder podcast.com [Music]
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