Welcome to Home Building

Hey there! I've been exploring the Preconstruction Worksheet I used to review important items with my Homebuyers right before we started. Last week, I reviewed how to handle those scary things that show up that you don't expect (extra excavation, etc.). This week, I came across the items where I discuss access to the property during construction. And I thought it was a great topic to review with you. Should Buyers Have Access? Once construction begins and the sticks and bricks are going up,...

Hey there! In keeping with my Halloween-themed emails, I thought I'd talk about something else scary in homebuilding. Have you ever had a situation where you encountered more than you expected? Especially when it comes to foundation work on a new home. Let's say you start digging and you find that the ground was soft - and - you needed to dig down further to get to solid ground. I mean, you can't put a foundation on soft ground if you expect the house to remain standing level. So, you dig...

Hey there! I took this last weekend to attend our local Parade of Homes event put on by the Harrisburg Metropolitan Home Builders Association. If you don't have an event like this in your area (or just don't know exactly how a bunch of houses would parade down the street), this is an event where Home Builders in the area present decorated homes for people to tour - showcasing their work and layouts. As someone who has built over 1,000 homes, I love to see the newest offerings. But I still...

Hey there! Early Fall is here. Pumpkin Spice is in the air (whether you like it or not) and Spirit Halloween stores are popping up in vacant storefronts across the country. And it got me thinking a little bit about the upcoming "spookiest" time of year. One of the most time-honored decorations of Halloween has to be the spiderweb. There's just something eerie about a sticky structure that is meant to draw in a spider's prey. I mean - look at this close-up picture. 👇👇 The entire structure of...

It was one of those posts that I didn't expect too much of - but, boy, was I wrong! If you didn't know, I'm pretty active on LinkedIn - trying to post almost every weekday. So - on Friday - I decided to post something on the fun side. I chose one of those weird things that homebuilding nerds can debate until they're blue in the face. Here's essentially what I asked? What is the swing of this door? And how would you explain it to someone else? Comment Door swing - assuming the door is swinging...

Hey there! Did you know that the Customer is NOT ALWAYS right? It's true - and - I said it! Yet you might not quite believe it. So, consider this story - and - you might come to realize that this is true. How I Learned That The Customer Is Not Always Right I had already taken about 4-5 months of abuse from a customer - all in the name of "customer service." I should have known better upon my first pre-construction meeting with the husband-and-wife team to review their file and tie up loose...

Good Tuesday morning to you! This email will wrap up my series on the basics of homebuilding financial terms that you need to know. Stick around until the end - as I have some exciting (but, admittedly, scary) news to share! If you've just joined my newsletter (thank you very much), the past few weeks, I've reviewed: Assets Liabilities Owners' Equity Revenue All of these things are primary headers on your financial reports (the Balance Sheet and the Profit/Loss Statement). The final financial...

Happy Tuesday Reader! This email is a continuation of my series on understanding basic homebuilding finance terms and concepts. In the past three emails, I've covered the three parts of a Balance Sheet: Assets Liabilities Owners' Equity Now it's time to review the two primary classes of financial data on your Income Statement: Revenue Expenses I want to focus on Revenue this week, and I'll wrap this small financial series up next week with Expenses. For those of you who have joined this...

It's Tuesday morning - and what could be more fun than reading a little bit about homebuilding accounting!?! I know - right???? In the last two emails, I wrote about Assets (the "good" stuff you want more of) and Liabilities (the "stuff you owe to others"). And those two things are found in a Balance Sheet - one of the financial reports you should take some time to understand. But - there's one more major item on the Balance Sheet that you should know about: Owners' Equity. Owners' Equity...