What Will Homes Of The Future Be Like? - Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies | Carlos Martin

What does the future hold for remodeling and homes? Well, make sure you bookmark Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies on your browser to go back and see what the best minds are telling you by digging through mounds of housing and economic data. This episode is DIGGING THE GOLD right out of the future and helping you distill how the future will shape up. Carlos is insightful and funny while explaining the future of the US home building and remodeling industry. Did you know our amazing voices can go beyond just the microphone? Yes, we have video! Subscribe to our YouTube channel here!

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GOLD NUGGETS:

(00:00) - HomeDepot’s DIY vs. Contractors

(04:09) - Importance of Quality Housing and Tradition

(16:03) - Aging in Place Technology

(23:36) - Trends in DIY and Home Improvement

(35:21) - Smart Home Tech’s Impact on Housing 

(45:18) - Financing and Decision-Making in Home Improvement

(53:54) - Customer Service and Remodeling Experiences

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Carlos’s Links:

LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlos-martin-9127284/ 

Harvard’s State of Housing | https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/state-nations-housing-2023 

Harvard’s Improving America’s Housing | https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/improving-americas-housing-2023 

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Books Mentioned:

House - Tracy Kidder

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Previous guests on The Small Business Safari include Amy Lyle, Ben Alexander, Joseph Sission, Jonathan Ellis, Brad Dell, Chris Hanks, C.T. Emerson, Chad Brown, Tracy Moore, Wayne Sherger, David Raymond, Paul Redman, Gabby Meteor, Ryan Dement, Barbara Heil Sonneck, Bryan John, Tom Defore, Rusty Clifton, Duane Johns, Beth Miller, Jason Sleeman, Andy Suggs, Chris Michel, Jon Ostenson, Tommy Breedlove, Rocky Lalvani, Amanda Griffey, Spencer Powell, Joe Perrone, David Lupberger, Duane C. Barney, Dave Moerman, Jim Ryerson, Al Mishkoff, Scott Specker, Mike Claudio and more!

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If You Loved This Episode Try These!

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• 2024 Strategic Planning in Home Services

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Have any questions or comments? Connect with me here!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

My material span 62% went to Home Depot, because I'm in Home Depot back here in Atlanta, right, and so I have a dedicated rep. And he came in and I had heard the earnings call and I went out there and got some data, so I started peppering them with it and, sure enough, what's happened was there was a spike in DIY for the last two years. They saw the same thing Carlos mentioned, which was DIY seemed to be going down, so they had been focused really heavily on the contractor market. Here we are They've seen it go up and now they're starting to see it decline again, and so now they're really focused back on making sure that the contractors are being served, because the DIY market's starting to recede a little bit.

Speaker 2: 0:39

I know I can't even get a parking spot up close because they got all the pro spots and I mean I just I'm being alienated. You know what?

Speaker 1: 0:47

I'll give you a trusted toolbox sticker and we'll let you park there Really.

Speaker 2: 0:49

That's why I park and I stroll in Big happy rolls in.

Speaker 1: 0:52

When I see, yeah, I do, I stroll in and I see the DIYers and I kick their cart a little bit.

Speaker 3: 0:56

I'm like, hey, stand out the way, I have a contractor, all those pork grannies that you're having, that's what I'm doing.

Speaker 1: 1:02

And then when they fall, I'm like, hey, listen, I got a fall protection thing that don't they owe us opportunity.

Speaker 2: 1:07

That's right. Always selling, always closing.

Speaker 1: 1:10

Welcome to the small business safari where I help guide you to avoid those traps, pitfalls and dangers that lurk when navigating the wild world of small business ownership. I'll share those gold nuggets of information and invite guests to help accelerate your ascent to that mountain top of success. It's a jungle out there and I want to help you traverse through the levels of owning your own business that can get you bogged down and distract you from any of your own personal and professional goals. So strap in adventure team and let's take a ride through the safari and get you to the mountain top. All right, alan, here we go. I'm afraid to even say that I'm going to have a beer on this one, because this would be like going back to college again and trying to go to class At that class you're not supposed to be in. That's that grad class A little hungover.

Speaker 1: 1:55

And a little hungover and going, you know, here at the dog. You're like I don't know if you were going to be able to understand all these words, because today, alan, we're stepping our game way up Now, yeah, you've really done yourself this time. I'm excited about this. But I'm going to say, you know again, he's a fellow engineer and we both went to You're trying to ride on his coattails, you like this? Yeah, hey. We both went to technology schools. Mine just happened to be Michigan Technological University, not the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and then go out to Stanford. So I got a little all-class between mine and what I did. But I do have my master's in mechanical engineering. So I feel like there might be a kinship, there might be some stuff we could share. Nice, try, all right, I'm done. Yeah, all right, I tried. We have Carlos Martin from the Harvard Joint Center of Housing Studies. Good.

Speaker 2: 2:42

Lord, that's a lot of words, right there, it's just so impressive.

Speaker 3: 2:44

It is so cool. It's a new word. So, great to see both of you and I'll try to catch up with you at some point, Chris, at least with the beard down.

Speaker 1: 2:52

All right, we want that. Good, we talked before we went on air that we'd offer him a beer and he said that's big words coming from a guy who is talking to be on Zoom. I'm like, all right, well, so if?

Speaker 2: 3:03

you're ever in.

Speaker 1: 3:03

Atlanta open invitation. We are always ready to go for beer, so Sounds good, I'll take you up on it Everybody.

Speaker 1: 3:09

You're in your car, if you're driving around, if you're in between, you're doing a walk, you're getting out there doing something healthy. Strap in, let's get going, because this is going to be a lot of fun. Can't wait, carlos, before we get started. So I did hit a little bit of your background. You went from the East Coast to the West Coast. Tell us how that arc happened after school and how you stayed in the field of housing and what you've done.

Speaker 3: 3:32

Yeah yeah, so I've always been interested in the physical quality of our homes and the people who touch the homes most are our modelers or the people who live in the homes, sort of people who live in the daily business of communities and community development. So I feel like that was always sort of my line upbringing and comfort of the long line of entrepreneurs and a long line of people who took care of their own homes and took care of their neighbors' homes, and so that was always fascinating to me. So my whole research career, which will have been around in this sector, about what we do with our homes and who takes care of them, that is amazing so.

Speaker 2: 4:09

I'm going to let Alan jump on. You've got to tell our listeners about the image behind you, because I think it's a neat story. It's just a gorgeous picture. Before we said hit record, I said where are you in Tuscany? Because he's in this vaulted brick. It's just gorgeous.

Speaker 3: 4:28

It looks like it's in ruins, right.

Speaker 3: 4:30

Yeah, it does and it is, it is so this is a picture of my great great grandfather's, my paternal great grandfather's home in central Mexico, and the reason I still have it up on the Zoom picture is because I just gave a talk to the World Bank on housing technology and so I wanted to show them how important it is that you realize how the culture and the history of the people who produce homes in your regions is just as important as any new family of technology that they would be adopting. So I kept it up and I haven't, because of course, it took me like 10 minutes to figure out how to put the picture up in my Zoom background and now I can't figure out how to take it down.

Speaker 1: 5:08

Lovely you went to.

Speaker 2: 5:09

Stanford, mit and you can't figure out how to. I know, I know, I'm a civil engineer from Stanford. Sorry.

Speaker 3: 5:15

Stanford, I'm embarrassing you I have a few.

Speaker 1: 5:19

Maybe you've gotten into better school If you're listening on the podcast you can always go check us out on the YouTube channel to see what this looks like, because it is amazing, it's a really cool piece, but it does bring you back to it because, again, all houses it just comes back to what we're looking at here. On that background you can have the newest fangled stuff.

Speaker 2: 5:34

I love the fact that it's just part of his roots and it's in his career now. Yeah, I think that's great that is.

Speaker 1: 5:40

I know it, I love that. And so it also reminds me of the meme during the COVID things where they were doing the Zoom calls and the attorney was on with the lawyer, with the judge, and he had this filter on his kid put on where he had a it was a kitty mask, so he looked like a cat and the judge came and saying, sir, can you please remove that? And he kept going. I apologize, your Honor, I don't know how to, and I'm like I know you don't, because I don't either.

Speaker 3: 6:05

That's exactly right. We're all sort of in this. You think we've been doing it for three years now. We've got figured out and had to change and put up pictures, but I'll take it down at some point.

Speaker 2: 6:14

But it was not a bad picture.

Speaker 1: 6:15

No, I'd say I'd love it. Great talk to see, and I love how you tied that in with the technology, because you're right. In today's day and age, as we build houses, we're all looking for the newest fangled thing, but you've got to have the basics down.

Speaker 2: 6:25

But how many years has that been standing? I mean, it's just, that'll go for centuries.

Speaker 3: 6:30

This home was built in 1893, I think Wow, so it's been around. I mean nobody lives there and there's some of the walls are collapsed completely right. It's more of a ruin in the countryside at this point, but I get to go see it every once in a while when I'm back down there and, yeah, it just reminds us of the people who want to build their homes on their own and people who help build them right, the people who have that knowledge locally how important that tradition is.

Speaker 1: 7:00

Yeah, I think that's huge that you tie it back, because a lot of times we can forget what it's all about when you first get started doing this stuff and getting into it. All right, so you got into this and then eventually got over to the stuff that you do today, and so why don't you tell us a little bit about what you produce and your mission from your viewpoint, because a lot of us consume what you guys produce, but from your viewpoint and your mission, what do you think you are producing and providing for us?

Speaker 3: 7:28

Right, well, I'm happy that you're reading it and happy that there are people who are out there listening to picking up our research, and we try to make our research as accessible as possible. So maybe helpful for me just to describe the Joint Center for Housing Studies. We're sort of the oldest university-based research center that's focused on housing and even though we're all researchers from a wide group of different disciplines and approaches, we try to make our work as accessible to a wider audience, particularly to people who are making policy decisions around housing. So we produce these things called signature reports. The most famous of them all is the state of the nation's housing that we produce every year. But my program so I'm the director of the Remodeling Futures Program.

Speaker 3: 8:13

And my predecessor, who I have always want to acknowledge and thank for getting me the job. He started the Remodeling Futures Program over 25 years ago. His name is Kermit Baker and he's still chief economist at the American Institute of Architects Again a group that represents a lot of small businesses, a lot of small design firms and Kermit mentored me into this position to really think about not just the remodellers who are producing the industry, but also what they're producing, what the physical quality of our homes are. So our signature report for our program is biannual, not annual. It's called Improving America's Housing, and I think that's where we were first met, chris was. I was talking about the Improving America's Housing Report that came out this year and all of the different aspects of it, including the reality that during the pandemic we had such a huge growth and remodeling, which also meant which one would think meant that we also had a huge growth and remodeling businesses. Not sure if that actually happened. There were some interesting things occurring at the same time.

Speaker 2: 9:20

Chris sucked up all that business.

Speaker 1: 9:22

I wish.

Speaker 2: 9:22

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 9:24

I mean, there was a wide spot of stuff that was going on there, and so I encourage people to read that report and certainly read the next one, where we're talking about what's happened in the post-pandemic world, which should be out in 2025. Coming out in 25.

Speaker 1: 9:38

Yeah, we do it every two years, so the current one was 2023.

Speaker 1: 9:42

Yeah, so he just downloaded a lot of reports. We'll make sure we get all this stuff in the show notes for everybody so you can go look for it, and so I love how humbly it was about it. I'm so glad that people actually read this. But I can tell you I know no less than two national organizations that absolutely not only sucked this stuff in but regurgitated and reused it National Association of Remodeling Industry, of Course, and the National Association for Realtors also uses this data. So you see it widespread and for me, that has helped me with my strategic planning of my own business here in Atlanta.

Speaker 1: 10:15

But it is also just a great state of the union for the US economy. When it comes to housing, especially now, your stuff's focused on remodeling Just a lot of great resources. You don't even have to be in this industry and when you read it you definitely pick up stuff about, because housing definitely drives a lot of our business here in the US and our economy and the way we think about things. So that's why I love hearing about this stuff and getting into it.

Speaker 3: 10:40

Well, I don't mean to be humble, but I appreciate that the plug in. I feel like the reality is we'd like to be doing even more work at the local level, because certainly so many small businesses that are in this business are looking at their local markets as opportunities. So we try to do that as much as possible. So you'll find that in all of our reports, but you'll also see the national trends that we're seeing in things like technology and things like who's buying homes and who's choosing to remodel on the demand side of the business.

Speaker 2: 11:10

Did I hear you say that you study the quality. Is it the quality of materials, or quality of construction, or quality of life? What does that mean? Yes, yes and yes.

Speaker 3: 11:20

Really the physical quality of our homes. Why would people choose to remodel or repair or improve their homes in any way? That could be because things are falling apart and we have, unfortunately. We're a lot better than most countries in the world. Our homes don't look like the home that you see behind me. It looks amazing to me. It looks beautiful, but you wouldn't want a bunch of plants in the middle of your house is my guess.

Speaker 3: 11:47

So our homes tend to be a higher quality for a wide range of reasons and performance areas that we could talk about more, but there is still a significant population of the country that lives in substandard housing, and so that's one area of focus that we're concerned with. But when we look at how what we expect our homes to be now and then level knowledge and technological prowess that we expect from our remodellers, we're at a much higher level than we expect remodellers who know not only the latest aesthetic materials, that sort of thing, but also energy performance, disaster performance, like all the things that people want out of their homes now. So there's a lot of expectation.

Speaker 1: 12:35

So let's start talking about some of these trends that you are seeing. What if you had to give us the top one? Surprise, which one would that one be the top one? I just want one.

Speaker 2: 12:45

Because that's the one, I don't handle.

Speaker 1: 12:46

I know it's got like 20 of them. Let me negotiate with three, yeah.

Speaker 2: 12:52

All right, there we go Three, we'll take three and this actually came out in our last American Housing Report.

Speaker 3: 12:58

So three things that we're particularly concerned with. Number one is energy retrofits. So we saw this happening after the first big federal investment in this in 2009, that people started taking all these tax credits right Either to put a solar panel on their roof or to improve insulation, to do all sorts of other things related to the energy performance of their home. So it took a big boost in 2009, 2010, and it pretty much stayed there. About 30% of projects have some of that kind of energy performance benefit to them. Now we expect that to grow even more, mainly because of all the rebates and tax credits that have come out in the recent legislation. We have about $9 billion worth of rebates alone. That have been a lot of two states and the states. Those states will be coming out with their programs.

Speaker 3: 13:53

And who does that work? That I mean, if I'm in the business and I'm not going to do my own electrical work, it's going to be a professional remodeler or electrician or repair person that you're going to hire. So that's going to be a really important growth area. The second would be this issue of disasters. Unfortunately, we've had a record number of disasters that created over a billion dollars in damage this year. I think we're up to 23. I always forget the number because it keeps changing. A new number keeps adding to it.

Speaker 2: 14:29

And it's not just the US or worldwide, just in the US, only in the United States. And yet we keep moving to Florida.

Speaker 3: 14:36

So we want to support our Florida brothers and sisters, and so hopefully we can figure out a way so they can live there.

Speaker 1: 14:43

Georgia's getting pounded too. My friend, the Georgia coast, huh, the tiny little coast. We're fine up there, we're at 900 feet, but I want to make sure we get that number out. So this year alone. Well, we're almost to the end of the year, in 23,. You said, do we set a record for disaster relief funds?

Speaker 3: 15:00

Not a relief fund. So part of the challenge is, of course, that the long-term relief funds have a lot to do with Congress doing special appropriations on top of that. So that would be a little more complicated, and so I would say it's a record number of disasters that are over $1 billion of damage.

Speaker 1: 15:18

Wow, yeah, I remember you had said that and that's a staggering number and I think I'm going to put words in your mouth. You attribute that to a lot of people have moved to the areas where disasters happen more, and so we're moving, we're attracted to Florida. Alan you're getting kind of that age yeah.

Speaker 2: 15:39

I'm feeling the call of the siren to the villages. That's enough.

Speaker 3: 15:44

There's a lot of that happening, and, unfortunately, homes are worth more now than ever happened in the past, and so a lot of the damages are just because there are simply more homes that are higher value more buildings that are higher value, but it's not just the Florida's of the world and Texas is of the world, and California is of the world.

Speaker 3: 16:03

Let's talk about wildfires too, but also the one I like to talk about all the time is in Vermont. Vermont had a 1 point I think it was $2 billion damages with their floods just past July.

Speaker 1: 16:17

And those are rivers not coastal flooding.

Speaker 3: 16:21

There was a major storm that occurred rivers over flooded. So part of what we're seeing here is the effects of climate change. We have to call it what it is, because these one time just dumping a feet of an inches of rain on one location, that's so land prepared for it Are we going to see more of. But we're going to see the wildfires. We're going to see the longer term chronic things like droughts in some places. So all those things are important, but I mean what I always say.

Speaker 3: 16:49

So there's a lot of money in repair and rebuilding after these events happen, because ideally, people have the right insurance, they're getting their claims processed or they're getting public assistance to rebuild. But what I'd like to see more of and we're seeing a little snippets of this starting to grow, particularly in certain places in the Southeast are those remodellers who are really smart and specializing in a specific kind of technology. That helped me for the disaster. Let me give you some examples. And particularly in hurricane prone areas, you're going to see people who know how to install storm shutters, who know how to tie down roofs better. This is all retrofit work. I mean there are certain new codes can handle new construction, but for remodellers right now there are things like that elevating homes, there are whole firms that only there are, a whole line of business. It's just elevating homes.

Speaker 3: 17:43

So I think there's some interesting examples of how that's going to play out, which I hope to see more.

Speaker 1: 17:48

Yeah, no, no, and I was thinking about it. You've got building elevated homes. He's taking it home and they move it up and add more foundation to it.

Speaker 2: 17:55

It is interesting how things change, because back in my enterprise rental car days it was at Hurricane Andrew that just devastated Southeast Florida, and before that they had no building code, or at least it changed to where you couldn't have. I mean, they were doing, they went to Cinderblock Construction and it was, you know. That's a pretty significant change and it's kind of surprising that they didn't do that before. So I do love how business adjusts to the needs of the consumer, and in this case it's a big need.

Speaker 1: 18:26

I mean, if you're listening to this just again, can you make get into a business that just seems so? So what's the word I'm looking for, nitch? Yeah, elevating homes. I'm the elevating home guy. They're like, well, who's going to buy that? Well, carl has just told you A lot of people are doing that because they want to sit there on the beach, they want to keep their house, but they don't want to move, but they're willing to pay somebody to jack it up, put a bunch of Cinderblocks underneath it and raise it up. Another story.

Speaker 2: 18:53

When we moved to Georgia from the West Coast, we switched, you know, to a local insurance agent and you know I'd made sure that we had earthquake insurance. And he looked at me funny and and he goes you're the first person who's ever asked me for earthquake insurance. And I mean he'd been in the business for 30 years and that year we had, you know, a minor earthquake. But he told me, his phone rang off the hook after that.

Speaker 3: 19:13

Oh my gosh, yeah, all right, so that's, I mean that's it reduces ideally it reduces your insurance burden too, if you're doing these things, or it makes you accessible in places like Florida, where a lot of people are losing coverage completely. Yeah, that allows you to buy insurance, so yeah. And then the same thing happens with fires. There's a whole crew of specialists in California and Oregon now, of specialist remodeling firms, who will come and do an assessment of somebody's house and say this is what you could do to help prevent at least fireproof, if I could use that word a little your house a little bit.

Speaker 1: 19:47

Wow, that's cool. All right, so that was the second one that was the second one. Energy, retrofits, disasters, and here we go you only want a one, and now you're pushing for three. Well, I'm writing stuff down now.

Speaker 3: 19:57

And I really think the table's making. But well, six and three. So the third is actually it has more to do with the people who are living in the home and that's the aging of our population. So people need and the reality is people don't want to live. Yes, we're all pointing at each other, except me.

Speaker 1: 20:14

Except me.

Speaker 3: 20:16

Thank you, Dr. Marvin Rosenzweiger.

Speaker 3: 20:20

But yes, we're all hitting a point in our lives that requires us to think about what we're going to do in the future. Nobody wants to live in a nursing home, nobody wants to live with their kids, move in with their kids and their grandkids and that sort of thing. So there's a big push for aging in place technologies. So a lot of that is some of the stuff you could get Like easy stuff, like grab bars in the bathroom and the shower stalls and that sort of thing. But some of this is a little more complicated, a little more nuanced, depending on how people age, like whether they have any kind of mobility up and downstairs, whether they loss of hearing, loss of sight, that sort of thing. So there's a whole crew, I think, of organizations as well as private sector small businesses, that are going to start specializing in that.

Speaker 1: 21:08

That one is a good one, and I'll tell you, I'm actually partnering up with an aging in place specialist. I am actually we're quoting our foot. Is that your gout doctor? No, that's a different one. Oh, okay, it's your liver doctor.

Speaker 3: 21:22

That's my gout doctor.

Speaker 1: 21:23

Yeah, I'm on a long list of medications. It all happened this last year. I don't know how, but don't worry about that, the chickens are not going to root Bacchus. Well anyway. So I am going to Vegas in January.

Speaker 1: 21:35

But, anyway, back to that. I'll give you a great example of a niche industry. These guys had developed impact protection for military vehicles and implemented them in vehicles, and they're out of Detroit and now they're implementing fall protection program in commercial and they're trying to get into the residential market. It's like airbags in your house. So know what it is, is the floor you put in and it's actually. It doesn't feel very comfortable, but it almost eliminates concussions if you fall, oh wow, and it minimizes bone breakage. And what they do is you put it down over a subfloor and then you have to put either carpet or a glue down system over it, and so we're going to be the first installers here in the Atlanta market in the residential area. So we're picking up the material, literally, here we are in December 23. We're picking up the stuff tomorrow, we're going to work with it over the holidays and we're quoting our first two jobs these next two weeks. Oh, that's awesome. It is.

Speaker 3: 22:33

That's pretty cool technology too. It sounds like the stuff they put on playgrounds when I was a kid.

Speaker 1: 22:38

Right, exactly.

Speaker 3: 22:39

And then we're going to have a big follow up the jungle gym, yeah, so and on that note I should say that my colleagues in the joint center and housing and aging society group just came out with their signature report last week called housing and aging society, and it talks about some of the psychology but really about who the people are and what the reality is. In this country we're coming in older population.

Speaker 1: 23:04

And again, I'm going to keep mentioning this this stuff is all available to anybody who wants to get it, and that is so key that this research is put together by people way smarter than me. I'm not going to put you guys into it, and if you're listening to it, maybe you're. Maybe you're way smarter than me too, but when they put this stuff together, man buckle in. Read that stuff up. I have to read it a couple times. I have my dictionary on the side and I, as soon as they come up with that AI thing to translate, I was waiting for you to go for the cliff notes.

Speaker 1: 23:34

Spark don't be, baby spark don't be. So it's all great stuff and it, while it might not be your exact industry, you will pick something up, especially, of course, it is for me. So it's interesting. But you pick up stuff like this, this stuff about disasters, and, oh my gosh, maybe I don't have the right insurance my own home, or maybe I need to find out a way to do a better thing, or maybe you find a niche industry out of this that you can go get into and go have fun with. I love it, yeah.

Speaker 3: 24:02

And I like to think that housing affects everything. So so much of the work that we do looks even like that People's savings rates, just to see. Is that how that affects housing remodeling etc. So I mean a lot of the information that we provide can be useful for any kind of business.

Speaker 1: 24:18

Yeah, awesome, all right, so those are the big, the three big things that came out. Is there one other one you want to add? I'm ready, I can write it down.

Speaker 3: 24:27

Oh, I'd say so because there was such a huge boost during the pandemic people doing remodeling. There was an interesting boost of DIYers that started doing more work, and so that's when trying to track it, how much is? The overall trend is actually that this is probably the most surprised, if you were asking me for one. That surprised me that there was a. There was a slight uptick in DIY because over the last 20 years we've actually seen that going down and more people relying on professionals to do the work for a lot of reasons, right, nobody has the bandwidth, nobody has the knowledge of what they're doing half the time. I could say that as somebody who has tried to do DIY work and have made a hot mess in my house.

Speaker 2: 25:16

Do you rely on like Home Depot and Lowe's and other organizations like that for some of that information? How do you get that data On DIYers?

Speaker 3: 25:25

So our signature reports to improve America's housing, on remodeling, actually comes from American Housing Survey. So this is national data, that we get the micro data and we do analysis and tabulations based on it. So sometimes we'll use some proprietary data. We won't use an organization like Home Depot or Lowe's proprietary data, obviously, and just goes out to the world. But occasionally we do have folks like Home Depot and Lowe's who have both been on our policy advisory board for the Joint Center for Housing Studies but they can't disclose certain things right because they're a publicly traded organization. But we do take proprietary information on occasion.

Speaker 1: 26:06

So I like how you played it in the middle, but I'm not going to so because of my, I'm sorry. This year we're going to end up at six and a half million in revenue. My materials spend it. 62% went to Home Depot because I'm in Home Depot back here in Atlanta, right, and so I'm. I have a dedicated rep and he came in and I had heard the earnings call and I went out there and got some data so I started peppering them with it and, sure enough, what's happened was there was a spike in DIY for the last two years. They saw the same thing Carlos mentioned, which was DIY seemed to be going down, so they had been focused really heavily on the contractor market. Here we are They've seen it go up and now they're starting to see it decline again, and so now they're really focused back on making sure that the contractors are being served, because the DIY market's starting to recede a little bit.

Speaker 2: 26:54

I know, I can't even get a parking spot up close because they got all the pro spots and I mean I just I'm being alienated. You know what?

Speaker 1: 27:01

I'll give you, I'll give you, I'll give you a trusted toolbox sticker and we'll let you park there. Really, that's why I park and I and I stroll in Big happy rolls in when I see, yeah, I do, I stroll in and I. I see the DIYers and I kick their cart a little bit.

Speaker 3: 27:12

I'm like hey, stand out of the way. I have a contractor All those pork grannies, that's what I'm doing.

Speaker 1: 27:18

And then when they fall, I'm like, hey, listen, I got a fall protection thing that nails opportunity, that's right. Always sell it.

Speaker 1: 27:24

Always be closing, all right, so, carlos. So that's me not playing it down the middle, but you did talk about that. There was, there was an uptick, and now it's starting to recede again, as people are starting to realize again. I probably don't have the skill set, I don't have the bandwidth, but I have. Even though inflation is eating into my buck of my, my pocketbook, a little bit, I'm still making a decent amount of money and I've got a lot of value in my home still. So, as you look forward to 24, I know we can't predict things, but what are you seeing? What are some trends besides this? What are some things we should be watching for? How many can? How many can?

Speaker 2: 28:00

you list, I'll go on and.

Speaker 1: 28:03

I'm going to keep going on those three or four, I won't go on.

Speaker 3: 28:10

I mean one thing that we do at the remodeling futures program. We do produce, we do a little projecting, we do a little estimation, we do a little crystal balling. It's called. The quarterly data point that we put out, is called the LEERA the leading indicators of remodeling activity. And again, all of this information is public. Anybody can look at our website and get all of these reports and all of these data and that comes out every quarter where we're saying what's going to happen in the next two to three quarters. What we project will occur.

Speaker 3: 28:42

And we still project a reducing industry, a reducing market base, simply because during the pandemic that was just sort of an uplift in the world that there was so much investment in homes. So we could talk a little bit about like, what does that mean? Are people's homes meaning something different now? Which I think is something really important to think about, because I think we do think of our homes differently now that people can tell our work, etc. So that's going to be maybe the 51. If you let me get to a 51 is this idea of people moving to tell our working, people spending much more time in their homes and really really be thinking about the relationship of the number of rooms and spaces, what they're doing in their homes.

Speaker 1: 29:26

Okay, so that's number five, or did I hit all?

Speaker 3: 29:29

I only wrote down one, that was one that we expect to see a little bit more of a little more understanding of what's happened in the post pandemic world. But the first four are certainly going to keep playing out in different ways.

Speaker 2: 29:41

So you said the numbers are trending down a little bit on investment in their homes, is that what I heard you say? But it's really relative to what they were spending in COVID. So what is it relative to? Just the pre COVID baseline?

Speaker 3: 29:53

It's going back to pre COVID, to pre COVID. Yeah yeah, we're going to see continued improvement. Well, we may see in the next over in the next. So this is going to be even longer than the next year. If I could do a little more projection, assuming that these IRA inflation reduction act rebates actually are implemented well, we could see an uptick over the next couple of years because they're supposed to be out, for the earliest state that I think is going to be producing them are states like California and New York. You know that have a lot of resources to invest in their energy planning and that sort of thing. They've gotten their money from the federal government. One state submit plans and no state has submitted their plan to DOE yet. They'll be doing it this summer, so the earliest we'll see is this fall, but they'll be good for 10 years.

Speaker 2: 30:45

Got it. So Chris really wants to know should he buy a boat next year? Is that where we're going?

Speaker 3: 30:50

I don't think you'll get a rebate for a boat. I think that's one thing that's gonna be.

Speaker 1: 30:54

What if I put a solar panel on it?

Speaker 3: 30:57

Maybe and maybe it's a boat house with a solar panel, we could talk.

Speaker 1: 31:01

Oh, I'm gonna stick solar panels on everything yeah so. I got my chickens out the backyard. Hey, I'll put solar panels on. Where's my rebate? Where's my rebate?

Speaker 3: 31:10

That's right. So that's your tax guy.

Speaker 1: 31:14

So the IR, that's the one thing I I needed to pull back because that was something I was listening, and now I tied it all together again. That is, I remember in nine when they were doing these energy rebates here in Georgia for a solar thing and it just didn't make any sense. People to do are moving to electric water heaters. Your local power company we have a big one here called Georgia power would give you a rebate if you did it. But those all kind of went away and so what Carl was saying is they're all coming back. That was part of the, the act that got passed, but we won't see a lot of this until the fall of 24, is that?

Speaker 3: 31:48

right. That's likely when you're gonna start seeing states putting actually developing their plans and offering the rebates to people. But it's a point of sale rebate and so if the point of sale is, is your retail, your retailer of the material or technology that's going to employ, or if it's the remodeler or the repair person who's doing the work, Right is what each state is trying to figure out right now. Got it? No, that's, that's, that's powerful.

Speaker 1: 32:14

That's gonna do it. That's gonna put a lot of extra work back into everybody's pockets that we were thinking so so you could get your boat. I'm working on it. No, we're getting there.

Speaker 3: 32:24

There's a remodeler's gotta get a bonus if they work in certain communities, so certain like under resource communities, lower income communities you actually get. I forget that. I've forgiven it for not knowing the exact number, but it's like a $500, $100 to a $500 bonus per house. Yeah, so alright. So that's a great that's a great one.

Speaker 1: 32:43

Alright, I'm ready. What are the other ones? This is I get my boat, so I mean we could go through all the five and talk much more nuanced about each of them.

Speaker 3: 32:54

So I definitely feel like a lot of that energy work may be a bigger trend that we'll see because a lot of states are adding On to that.

Speaker 3: 32:59

The second one we go back to is the disaster work, and we're starting to see some states offer incentive programs.

Speaker 3: 33:10

I know California is already starting to develop an incentive program for people who are doing these kind of wildfire remodeling, pre fire remodeling, like in preparation for wildfire, and there are examples of people getting Insurance premium reductions in the south. There's some great examples and I think Georgia's contemplating this as well. But there are states like the state of Alabama was actually a forerunner of this they created there's a program called fortified home and run by the Institute for building home and safety, which is an insurance backed Non-profit that will has created these sort of standards for retrofitting and if you meet that, get a premium reduction and your insurance. So they'll be so. So that has expanded now into the Louisiana and it's likely going to be spreading to a lot of other states. So, depending on the specific hazard that's your, your region is prone to, there may be those kind of incentive programs that if you start specializing in that specific installation or Retrofit, you may be helping that your clients.

Speaker 1: 34:21

So one of the things we haven't touched on but you did talk about a little bit and then we put it and started talking about Old world building is the technology coming into the homes. What are some things that you saw in your research with technology and homes that we ought to be looking for or thinking about?

Speaker 3: 34:39

So and this ties a little bit with the energy part of it, but it's about smart homes and we've had a lot of conversations. So, in addition, I should take a step back and note that we have a remodeling futures steering committee, so, which is composed of remodlers from all over the country, of all sizes, including large ones, and even just mom and pop remodlers and product manufacturers, etc. We try to keep that group to about 40 to 50. We try to keep it very small because we really want to hear directly from them, and the bigger the group gets it's more difficult. But you could look at our website at jcshedu to Find some of the lists of that. Those remodlers, and a lot of them, tell us that they are Really interested in smart home. So a lot of.

Speaker 3: 35:27

We all know like that, or origin of the smart home world. We're really around, like I, I, audio systems, you know high-tech gaming and all of that sort of stuff, but it's expanded. So I mean half the appliances you will see at a retail Applying store have smart chips and that will communicate with your meter, with your smart meter, and almost 70% of homes now across the country have smart meters, so that their, your utilities, your in Georgia storage of power, will have a lot of access to Knowing exactly what in your home is using how much power at what time during the day.

Speaker 3: 36:09

So the benefit of that for the consumer is that you could. You could start staggering it so that you're only using certain kind of systems at the right time, but a smart remodler who's able to connect all these things on behalf of the consumer, we'll be able to tap into some of those resources that are being incentivized by a lot of your local utilities. And then there are big groups like Google who are investing in the kind of interconnection technologies. The famous example is Google Nest, if anybody out there has heard of this. So that kind of smart home technologies.

Speaker 1: 36:45

No, not you. Google, no, google, stop Sorry, they heard.

Speaker 3: 36:48

Google here in my office and here we go.

Speaker 1: 36:49

So there you go. So yeah, so smart home technology.

Speaker 3: 36:53

I think we're gonna start seeing a lot more of by default, simply because I don't know if you caught what he was putting down, though, but your your refrigerator may be smarter than you.

Speaker 1: 37:01

And when you open up your refrigerator and you go for that beer at 10 o'clock at night and it says I do you sure you need that? Yes, I'm like you're trying to no longer be morbidly obese.

Speaker 2: 37:10

Yeah, you're just trying to be slightly over weight. But he brought up the Google Nest and I want to bring up a project we're working on a project.

Speaker 1: 37:17

I want to bring up a project we're working on here at champions place which is helping Disabled adults have an active lifestyle. So they're not mentally disabled, they're physically disabled and Google has worked on A number of connectivity, the things that they're doing, and we were actually working with them and implementing it in their own homes here. There's 90 different homes in Atlanta that we're doing this. They have a center that we worked on and on this with them. So we're the handyman, we come in and we install the smart switches so they can turn on TVs and I I don't I'm not joking, I actually do have Google in my own house because we practice at my house to help this. But it's really cool and some of the things that they're doing and then we've done and Google is working with them on is they developed their own translator, so the individual adult will speak a number of sentences and paragraphs, send it to Google, google translates, it, puts it back in, uses their translates. So when they say Google, call dad, and it's hard to decipher for us, it actually knows it and boom, the dad's calling on the TV in the room with them.

Speaker 1: 38:26

Google open the blinds. Google open the door. The door, the blinds, the lights Um, we've helped install. So that's why I asked the about the, the smart home stuff, because I I do think that that's going to be a big Trend for all of us, and you tie it back to energy efficiency as well, so I think that's going to be amazing you are going to have to put solar panels on your chickens.

Speaker 2: 38:47

I am.

Speaker 3: 38:49

Little panels you could, so you should probably get some chips in that floor and that's your turn because it's also Digitalization is also playing out in the aging technology space. Because, for help reasons, you know, we don't have the like, press the button and I've all in it.

Speaker 1: 39:06

So yeah, so you have a sensor impact. I mean, this is a string gauge. Uh, come on, I'm talking to my engineer. You won't understand this stuff.

Speaker 2: 39:12

I'm sure it's like why won't they put chips in a football in the nfl If we can put chips on the floor and make our ovens talk to it? All right maybe they have.

Speaker 1: 39:21

Oh, and I'm, you know, my fancy football playoffs start this weekend, so now I'm calling foul.

Speaker 3: 39:29

I knew it, I knew it, uh, so I think that's going to be a way and it's not just for the home itself that there are a lot of eight and artificial intelligence applications that are starting to be used by remodellers in their business, both for determining what kind of clients they want and how to solicit their clients. But there's also a lot that's going on with regards to note taking, so you could have you know instructions to your crew or your, your trades uh uh, superintendent, and the notes become automatically documented. So there are a lot of real interesting things like that that are starting to play out that we're we're seeing happening.

Speaker 2: 40:10

So, when you're talking about all this stuff which it's amazing what keeps going through my head is you know, the cost of materials are still high. Chris is jacking his rates every other day. We're paying for this technology and yet daddy needs a boat. Daddy needs a boat and Yet affordable housing is is a big issue. And how do I mean? How do we reconcile all that without the government having to stroke a check every time we turn around?

Speaker 3: 40:35

That's exactly right. I mean you're talking about the two supply constraints. The material supply constraint has gotten a little softer. It's we've stabilized. We don't have the volatility that we saw during the pandemic right across all materials Um, uh, across all materials. But the labor side is the big question. I think that we're going to be tracking on the supply side.

Speaker 2: 40:56

Well, the same thing with the, just the low carbon footprint and sustainability. I mean all of that right now is just it's more expensive.

Speaker 1: 41:04

Well, and carl, sit on it, the labor's just not coming back into the market, and that's the other problem. So you know, I'd love to work on affordable housing, but I don't know if I have the people Available to me to be able to get into that market and with the skill set to do it with the skill set.

Speaker 2: 41:19

Well, and that leads to another question. So I'm in commercial real estate and you drive out any interstate around Atlanta and you just see these massive warehouses and they're further and further out there. You know, governor kemp's done a great job of landing just massive, multi-billion dollar projects. Um, battery plants, battery, you know, ev vehicles, and they're in these areas where I'm like who's going to work there and where are they going to live? And are we, are we, as we tend are, bringing more manufacturing back to the states, or are we going to go back to the? What did they call it when the? You know, the automakers built the little neighborhoods around and they have the company towns, towns, that's right.

Speaker 3: 42:02

So I mean, that's that crisis number one, right?

Speaker 3: 42:05

so if I'm taking it even further step back from the remodeling pre-sures work if you read any of the joint center for housing studies Signature reports. We talked about the affordability crisis in this country. We've never seen this level of an affordability in history in this country, which is a frightening thing. Right, because then people can afford To buy a home. But people can also can't afford to leave their home. Right because they don't have other options financially.

Speaker 3: 42:33

So for the remodeling futures work is an interesting thing because if people know that they're staying in their homes longer, they may be investing in their homes. Right, they may be willing to do more remodeling and repair work because they see the benefit of staying in. In reality, we usually saw most of the remodeling work occur right after somebody bought a home or when they were preparing to sell the home. So now we may be seeing that transition that's well beyond the next three to four years. That could be in the next 10 years, sort of looking at our crystal ball about what longer term demographic changes were seen in this country because of that lack of affordability that will affect the remodeling industry.

Speaker 1: 43:12

That is that's a lot to take in on that one, because We'll see it short term, like you said, you know interest rates, probably maybe a small pullback, and I just saw a report, before we get on, that interest rates came down under 7%, which you know, for a lot of people are like, oh, finally they're getting back to normal. I'm like, no, hang on there, big guy. Yeah right, when you're Like 7% was a good number back in the day, man. So I just I wonder if we're going to see that correction where people are going to just find that a new norm next year. But but you still hit on it the affordability of homes, because home values are not going down.

Speaker 2: 43:53

I mean, this is historically very expensive to build and cost of land development everything.

Speaker 3: 44:00

That's exactly right, if we had more housing building across the country. We would be helping to trust that issue. But a lot of places are built out. They're built out with single family homes that are there in places that don't allow more density to be built on top of that. So we've sort of bought ourselves a bad problem, right? If you're currently a homeowner though you have. You're sitting on a at least a nice pot of money right there, your ask. Your equity is higher than it's ever been to.

Speaker 1: 44:31

So let me ask your perception on that one, because this is what I actually just kicked this around with my financial planner this morning. So do I have a lot of equity in my home? I do. I've been in my house now for 22 years, but what am I going to do with it? Well, nothing, because if I sold my home now I would have to buy something smaller because I'm downsizing, but I'd have to pay probably more and actually maybe you'd have to take out a stupid mortgage that I don't have. So tell me, what is the mindset of people when you think they had the home value? Are they spending more or do they? Do they use that as a factor in their decision making on buying or purchasing or renovating?

Speaker 3: 45:06

So we thought we'd see that pattern happening over the pandemic, that we see people using more of the equity in their homes and there was a certain uplift of people using equity in their homes, but it's still the same pattern. Vast majority of people who invest in repair and any kind of improvement and retrofit of their homes are still using their own cash savings and not tapping into their equity. People only tap into equity when it's a huge project we're talking over 50 K kind of projects and that was actually a section of our improvement America's housing report that came out this year, where we talked specifically about the financial tools and we we were I guess we can say we were surprised because that's always been the trend, since we've been tracking where people are you, what kind of financial resources people are using to pay for modeling, but we thought we'd see a little more shifts in that.

Speaker 3: 46:01

So so you're saying, if it's over 50,000, people are pulling equity out of their home and they're willing to do it because they're not moving but under the project, the more likely those happen to be, because they need to, because most people don't have 50 K, 100, a line around right.

Speaker 1: 46:19

No, that's a number. Yeah, for sure. But when you're doing a small repair, somebody was telling me what? You've got all this value in your home, so they're going to do the repair. I'm like that is or I've got so much money in my stock portfolio that I'm going to do this repair. I'm like but if you're paying cash for it, how does that make your decision easier? That's the thing. I just can't. I can't put those two, I can't connect those dots. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it helps. Carlos, carlos got it.

Speaker 3: 46:48

I got it. It's us engineers, we understand each other.

Speaker 1: 46:51

Thank you, I bring him along.

Speaker 2: 46:53

I'm just gonna stay over here and bring out a finger paint.

Speaker 1: 46:57

Here. We got the coloring books over there. That's right, right, and I just have that.

Speaker 3: 47:02

But yeah. So I think that challenges. There's a psychology with people willing to wait, Thinking that they're not going to do a project in their home until they have the money in hand. Right For them, it's almost like a purchase of something in their inside their home. It's almost like a purchase of an appliance. And this is founded on completely nothing but my own anecdote of my own understanding of how people decision making processes that people go through. But I still think that on the whole, they still think of it as a purchase.

Speaker 3: 47:33

So they need to have the cash savings or use a credit card and that sort of thing, rather than using a special financial tool. Like they'll only use a special financial tool when it's their purchase in the home or when they're purchasing a car, but beyond that they're sort of a fear of taking on so much debt.

Speaker 1: 47:51

I'm in alignment with that. That's what I was thinking as well is that if I have the money, I'm going to do the job.

Speaker 2: 47:57

It sounds way too responsible for what I know about the average US consumer. That's true, doesn't?

Speaker 1: 48:03

it. Well, I'm going to give you a credit card. I'm offering financing. Don't get me wrong, hey dude. We're offering financing every time we talk to somebody, trust me, especially right now, because we have three different kinds of customers.

Speaker 2: 48:14

And now you know how to ask about or talk about financing.

Speaker 1: 48:18

Right, because of the podcast I learned how to sell financing. Not the Chris one I was really bad at before, because for 14 years, carlos, I would come in and say, well, we're looking at this, mr and Mrs Jones, we're probably going to the bathroom. How much? I said, well, it's between 20 and 25,000. Oh, that's too much. Oh well, I do offer financing, which I'm basically saying oh you poor bastard, I can give you money, but you're too poor to take it. So, my sales approach was horrible, so we've had to fix it.

Speaker 3: 48:47

I'm getting much better at that Good to hear. Hopefully we've gotten people to take them in and out.

Speaker 1: 48:51

We're getting some interest. Yeah, we're actually we are. Yeah, it's actually helping out quite a bit, but I still think it's that same way. Nobody.

Speaker 1: 49:00

I've had people say well, they look at the port. No, you're not looking at your retirement portfolio to decide whether or not you're going to do this job or not. It's whether or not. Did inflation not hit me as bad. Do I have the money to be able to do this? And if I have, if I have the extra $10,000 right now, okay, I can either go take my family to Walt Disney World, or I can go to Walt Disney World, or I can go on a big vacation, or I can fix up my house. But I've already fixed up the big things in my house. So I'm going to go on vacation for a while and I'm thinking it's going to start to come back where people are, to careless point I think you mentioned this before is that people will be working from the homes for the foreseeable future in a hybrid status.

Speaker 1: 49:40

But I've always said this when I was traveling, I was gone five days a week, and in the house too, and so what was I most worried about? Only two days a week? Did I see anything in my house. That was broken. Today, if I work in the office three days a week and I'm at home for I got four, I got two extra days to look for things around the house I don't like. Or back to your point. I Experienced my home differently. You know, I need that office. I need that space where I can lock the kids out, because I can, because I haven't built any kid cages that you guys know about. I only built doors to allow people to close off themselves into offices.

Speaker 3: 50:17

We're gonna do a new survey that we've done for Four cycles now every two years with the farnsworth group where we look at Different specific technologies. We look a lot of health, healthy housing times, technologies. But this last round we changed the questions just a little bit to talk about the pandemic effects and whether people were looking To build an extra room or to separate a room or to build an ADU or something that so to get away from their family because of the pandemic, because they were spending so much time together.

Speaker 3: 50:51

We didn't see that much. It was the first time we added those questions so well when we do the survey again early 2024,. We'll let you know.

Speaker 1: 50:59

All right. So I think the question you should ask is did you have to add COVID doors to your office? Because I can't tell you. We must have put in Close to 30 different sets of French doors and offices that had been cased opening before, but they literally had to do zoom calls and stay at home, but they they had to keep the kids out of the office. So we were putting in the the 15 light French doors from Geldwin I. We put in no less than 15 of those.

Speaker 2: 51:26

Well, we saw the same thing in commercial real estate somebody looking for you know Some suburban office and the trend for a while was the big open spaces and the collaborative spaces and no doors. And and then all Suddenly it's like, yeah, we want a lot of separate offices and we want our own separate entrance. We don't want the you know the elevator in the middle of the building. We don't want to be around all those other disgusting people, people, people.

Speaker 1: 51:50

Oh, carlos, this has been amazing.

Speaker 3: 51:53

It's a lot of fun.

Speaker 1: 51:55

Yeah, well, I had a lot of fun too. I think, Ellen did it have been more fun if you did had a beer.

Speaker 3: 51:59

I was gonna say I'll send you at the end of this. I'll send you my address for you.

Speaker 1: 52:04

All right, don't? I'm sending you a wine drinker.

Speaker 3: 52:07

Yes, okay what's your beer drinker? I'm all whiskey.

Speaker 1: 52:15

Our kind of people Like to say if you can't, you can see the bar behind us. You said you definitely like to work your way across the bar. Yes, I do, my friend.

Speaker 3: 52:24

Depends on what I'm eating.

Speaker 1: 52:25

All right, that's right. You guys got to pair it correctly. Carlos. How can people find you? How would you want people to find you? I know we're gonna push out your studies, so this is your time to plug it up.

Speaker 3: 52:35

Hey, we'll definitely go to the joint Center for Housing website and that would be JCHSharvardedu, and so all the reports that have talked about. We actually have data that you could download yourself on all range of all sorts of things, including consumer finance, including Demography, that could be applicable to any kind of small business Locally, but it's JCSHharvardedu and that's you can see my picture there too.

Speaker 1: 53:01

Awesome. Thanks again for coming on, but we're not gonna let you leave, not until we ask our famous four questions All right. First one is give us a book you would recommend to our audience that you've recently read or you think would be just really cool.

Speaker 3: 53:16

Right. I first I would say improvement America's housing, but that's more of a report, not a book, so I'm very old-school about this. When I talk about housing, I talk. I like to refer back to house by Tracy Kitter. I don't know if you remember this. Tracy Kitter also wrote a book about that admins of the computer and that sort of thing. But Tracy Kitter wrote a book called house, about housing, building their own house. So that's a fun book because it also is about the interaction that had with their remodeler, with their, with their builder, who was a small builder.

Speaker 1: 53:53

So it's a good book. I do know this one. Now I did not read it, but yes, now you remind me of that one. Now you gotta read it. It's an old book.

Speaker 3: 53:59

It's about 25 years old now. Yeah, I want to say we said old book.

Speaker 1: 54:05

I was kicking all the way back before I was born, printing bread instead of, you know, in my prime old I was going back to when I was young. Yeah, well done, carlos, well done. Okay, the next question is All right, uh question C yes, I just lost my butt, I don't know what is the favorite feature of your own home.

Speaker 3: 54:30

Oh, so I have my house that I own Is in Washington DC and it's a condo. What I like about it is that it's fairly open space, which gives me a lot of flex of the levy to make changes to it.

Speaker 2: 54:45

So I like an open plan. So there's plenty of room for that case that Chris is going to send you.

Speaker 3: 54:54

Well, I'm see a room for the case.

Speaker 1: 54:56

He's double it down. I love this all right. I thought you were one year, one way just for the record, everybody, I don't make one dime off this podcast, but I am going to spend and I'm gonna get Carlos something. I've already got an idea.

Speaker 3: 55:09

Wait, so I wait, so I'll come to Adelaide and then we'll go out to a bar.

Speaker 1: 55:12

I love it. No, no, no, we're. I'm getting you something. We're good, all right. So what are the things that Alan and I are very Fonda is, we believe a lot about? Passioned about is our customer service, the way we have built our businesses and Alan being a serial entrepreneur now in the commercial real estate business, we are very passionate about customer service. So what does a customer service pet peeve of yours when you were out in the marketplace and you're the customer?

Speaker 3: 55:39

I have a couple and I could say as a, as a client of remodels, I could say this and so I really combine two because I think they're related one is responsiveness and One is transparency. So I would combine those, mainly because you, you, you want to know what the status is of your project. Right, and I would be perfectly happy with somebody telling me look, the, the like, the, the supplier of the, the cabinetry that I wanted to put in, screwed up. I have another week, like, just just tell me what the status is.

Speaker 1: 56:15

I rather have that was kind of that kind of information, so I know he hit on a big one that is such such an epidemic in my industry is that when we have bad news we don't want to tell you?

Speaker 3: 56:25

it's not your industry, it's all industries all industries, especially small businesses, because you're on such tight margins. You don't want to lose. You feel like you're gonna lose a client. You're. It's the exact opposite. You will keep a client if you're honest and direct.

Speaker 1: 56:39

Yeah, it hard. I mean it's hard and it hurts, but yeah, you're right, doing that is so much easier. I tell my remodeler's this and my remodeling division Guys I have never had anybody rip my head off going. I can't believe you told me this right after you found out. They're mad, they. They don't like it, they don't like the delay, they don't like hearing this. But holding it for three weeks and then telling them I said you can absolutely, you, absolutely, you live the fruit, the fuse, yeah, and you're and you deserve what you get. And if you just rip the band-aid off and do it now, you can recall, you can recoil, you can rebound a lot of research, all right, yeah, thank you for yourselves as doctors, right and you we want your doctor to tell you the truth.

Speaker 1: 57:23

Yeah, I'm not going to that. Call me Amy, why no? So I'm going back, all right. Last question what is a DIY nightmare story of yours?

Speaker 3: 57:32

Well, I have a recent one, and so part it Part of the challenge with pandemic right and so he started a two bathroom remodel Right before the pandemic. It literally was the month before the pandemic started, so it gets how long it took to finish that. Come out four years to get my bathrooms remodel. Why? Because the first year and a half I couldn't get anybody to even finish their quotes.

Speaker 1: 57:59

Oh, my god, yeah so.

Speaker 3: 58:03

and we're talking like the whole nine yard like Really top-end design build firms, all the way down to mom local repair mom pops. Nobody I couldn't get people to do it because at the beginning nobody. Come to the house and then it became a problem of everybody, was overworked, nobody could have time. I am there time to get. This will hurt your feelings, chris, because it hurts mine. My plainty ladies, husbands, cousin, to do the repair, to do we do both of the bathrooms.

Speaker 1: 58:33

All right, we're gonna strike that from the podcast people hear this because we know that, carlos, you'd recommend me of no, he's a huge proponent of licensed, accredited contractor.

Speaker 3: 58:45

I was.

Speaker 1: 58:47

You walk it good.

Speaker 3: 58:50

Yes, especially if he was my planing ladies husband's cousin. But that's all like I had to use the connection I have to my cleaning lady. So I heard it convinced this guy to do the job it's all about networking.

Speaker 1: 59:02

All right, everybody, if you haven't done this, you can go out there and you can print one. Carlos doesn't know this, but you can print that. You have now been Educated at the Harvard level. You can get a Harvard certificate by just listening to this podcast. You go out there and you can put that in the back of your Office and you can put Harvard graduate credit level, because this was a graduate level course. You just got schooled. My friends, if you didn't pick something up on this, this is all on. You. Get out there, go check it out. J, c, h, su, dot, harvard, dot, edu. Go out there, download it. Do me a favor, read something, get back with me and tell me what you think you Learned. I'd love to hear from it. We're gonna do more from the email bag next time we get back on here. We're out of here, carlos, that was awesome. Cheers everybody.

Speaker 3: 59:46

All right, thanks you Thanks, chris and Alan. Bye everybody.