Part one of a two part series: We take you through the time and cost-savings of Home Builders when working with our Design and Staging Team.
The Construction Conundrum
There is no doubt about it, residential construction and home building in Ontario is at an all-time high. Since 2019 and throughout the pandemic, we’ve seen unprecedented sales in suburban new builds, custom homes and resale homes. And it keeps trending upwards as we approach 2022. It sounds like things are looking up, right?
But if we take a closer look at the bigger picture, what seems like great news all around is a bit more complicated when you consider some of the challenges our builder community is facing: downsized workforce, materials shortages, and indecisive clients to name a few.
Looking Ahead to Getting Ahead
We see you builder friends, and we know that these challenges are slowing down your construction process, reducing the number of projects you can take on, ultimately detracting from the profit-center of your business: building homes.
As we look towards the 2022 housing market, now is the time to get ahead of the game and work strategically to overcome these challenges that are costing you time and money.
Let’s take a look at how working with an interior designer can help you navigate growth and increase your revenue.
Challenge #1: “My Team is Stretched”
If you’re like some of the builders we work closely with, you may have had to reduce your staff throughout the pandemic. Or perhaps you were lucky to keep your staff but now find that projects are piling up. Where does that leave your allocation of time now that the economy is reopening and your project pipeline is growing?
We understand that it’s harder than ever to strike a balance between project focus and client service, especially if your team is small. Which one deserves more attention vs. which one demands more attention? Quite honestly, both! And in this industry, there’s no room for compromises when it comes to these two pillars of your business.
The Solution: Partner for Longevity
Leaning on the resources available to you within your network is an ideal means of navigating your focus back to the core of your business, mitigating risk and reducing costs involved with internal shortcomings. Let’s consider this:
You are more than aware that the housing shortage is pushing the entire construction industry to produce homes at lightning speed. This is especially difficult when working with a small team because every person wears multiple hats (including you) and works diligently to get the job done.
But the fast pace for a prolonged period is just not sustainable and will eventually wear on your team if it hasn’t already. The consequences: burnout, turnover or even worse, injury and illness. This is a real issue and it will cost you way more on the back end. Be sure to outsource where you can so you can build longevity within your team and reduce the risks associated with work-related stress.
Challenge #2: “Stock Shortages are Delaying My Projects”
You’ve got permits, approved drawings, your construction schedule is set and your construction teams are ready, only to find out that materials will be delayed. To a developer, this is the worst case scenario, which leaves you with two options: go back to the sourcing stage to find similar products or wait until the original order arrives. Each of those options are both frustrating and costly!
As we’ve come to recognize in the real estate development process, lumber and building materials naturally come first as they are needed to get the initial part of the job completed. Subsequently, interior design selections come in later as the construction process is underway – but this is where the gap lies and we need to close that gap!
The Solution: Work in Tandem
An interior design company can bridge that gap. Get them in at the beginning of your project so they can work in tandem with your construction build, not following it. They also have their own extensive network of suppliers that you may not have access to, which provides a greater opportunity for sourcing products that would otherwise be unavailable.
The result: having your interior and exterior design selections ordered and shipped in a timely manner so they’re ready when you are. Nice isn’t it?!
Project Young Street is the perfect example of how we were able to help Worton Homes from the beginning of a build from the drawings to the design so they were able to work efficiently to manage multiple builds while we took a lead on the design and selections.
Challenge #3: “My Clients Are Indecisive”
Whether they’re buying, building or renovating a property, home buyers’ hopes and expectations are extremely high, making it almost impossible for them to have confidence in their selections. And those clients who have great taste just need that extra help pulling a cohesive look together. Most are putting their all into creating a home to call their own and while it’s an exciting process, it can be confusing and overwhelming.
But as we’ve already mentioned, the longer you wait to order, the longer the wait will be for delivery, if at all! This my friends is what we like to call “The Double Delay” and home building clients are notorious for this!
The Solution: Leave the Details to a Designer
An experienced interior design team has the knowledge, resources and quite frankly, the patience to provide a highly individualized client experience while managing budgets and timelines efficiently.
In fact, in some cases, our experience working with builders to manage the interior design aspects of their project has shaved months off of their own time, just by bringing us in to work with clients.
A great example of how we were able to take the lead on a design client was our project on Concession 1. Our clients had great taste but found it challenging to select all of their interior finishings to create a cohesive style within their home. We used our 10-step Process to pull together their look.
The Results: A seamless client experience between the builder and our services. Best of all, we saved time and money by reducing those pesky double delays!
Moving Forward Together
As a member of the Home Builders community in Ontario, we congratulate you on navigating your business through the weeds of the pandemic and continuously pivoting in the aftermath. Our industry has forever been changed but what has not changed is our sense of community, our passion in what we do and the integrity we carry throughout each one of our projects.
It’s an exciting and exhausting time to be in the residential construction industry but if the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that resilience doesn’t mean doing it all on your own. It means finding strength through your network and working through the challenges together. With that being said, moving into the 2022 residential construction season and beyond, we are here to support our builder community one design project at a time.
Stay tuned for part II of this series as we continue to explore the benefits of outsourcing professional staging for Model Homes and how the upfront investment could end up making you money in the long run.
