The House That Wisdom Built - EP 08: The Pre-Construction Handoff

In this episode of Building Brews and BBQ, we’re talking about one of the most exciting – and often overlooked – milestones in any home build: the pre-construction handoff. Vince and Nathan walk through what this pivotal moment looks like, why it matters, and how it can set the stage for a smoother build experience.

From “Co-Construct Happy Hours” to sharing the full design board with homeowners, we unpack how the handoff from pre-construction to construction shapes the next phase of your project. It’s a moment for celebration, but also a critical opportunity to ensure everyone’s on the same page before the first shovel hits the dirt.

We also dive into the emotional rollercoaster that begins with construction, complete with laughs and real talk about the highs, lows, and everything in between. Whether you’re building your dream home or just curious about what really happens behind the scenes, this episode is packed with insights

Building Brews & BBQ
Instagram: @buildingbrewsandbbq
YouTube: YouTube.com/@BuildingBrewsandBBQ

Hosts:
Vince Longo
longocustombuilders.com
Instagram: @longocustombuilders

Nathan Walters:
massarossa.com
Instagram: @massarossa

Produced by:
Michael Newman
michaelnewmanfilm.com
Instagram: @michaelnewmanfilm

Transcript

Vince (00:00)
Trust me, it's going to take the same amount of time to build your home, whether you go through a thorough pre-construction or you don't. Or you just start just, want to kill someone at the end, or do you want to move in and say, was an enjoyable experience, and I'd recommend them. That's right.

Welcome to Building Brews and Barbecue. We're in the midst, probably about halfway there now, of our series called The House That Wisdom Built, where we're taking you through from day one, just having the thought about your house or renovation or new home, all the way through to where you move in. Today is what I think is a celebratory episode. it's that point where all the hard work that you did

The pain, the suffering, the anguish, the arm-twisting of contracts and costs and budgets, all that hard work today is going to flip to jovial love. This is like a 1969 show. Like it should have been filmed during the love era. Okay. Right? So picture yourself, listeners, put yourself in Woodstock.

Nathan (01:03)
and show you guys.

1969, that's when they said we landed on the moon,

Vince (01:17)
That's right. And we did, and we did during Woodstock. During Woodstock, now you lost half our listeners. Well... But listen, I believe that this is a love episode. And hands on the table at all times. So, what I want to do is introduce Nathan, my co-host, from Oklahoma Builder. I'm Vince. If you don't know us, hello. And today we're talking about the pre-construction handoff.

Nathan (01:20)
Agree to disagree.

Look it up.

where are my hands?

Vince (01:47)
Well, unless you go go gadget arms, I'm doing pretty good so far. Mr. Producer, thank you for separating us further this round, this episode. So today we're talking about that pre-construction handoff and why it's so important, exciting, celebratory time. I don't know how you, Nathan, have your company set up, but the way we're set up is to make it a fun but official

Nathan (01:55)
In the love episode.

Vince (02:17)
from the pre-construction side, whether you've got a big team, small team, but just the mindset of we're going from pre-construction now to we're physically getting to build a home, get to enjoy all the hard work we've put into the design, selections. Now we get to see this baby come to life, right? Which again is gonna have its own set of emotional roller coasters, but it's different. You're off that first roller coaster. That's right. Right?

Now you're getting on the next one. how do you like to do that transition within your company?

Nathan (02:53)
So we call it actually, because we use Co-Construct as our software, we call it Co-Construct Happy Hour. Okay. And so that's what we call it inside our company. Indie perfect world Co-Construct Happy Hour is done before we break ground with you set 85, we're around 75 % of selections completed. And what we do is we actually bring our customers in with our construction team, the pre-construction team.

the designer, myself, and we do two things. We go through their design board, which they have signed off on. They have made selections on. We take them through it, which is fun because they haven't because the designer has been leading them. But in the customer's mind, they've been making decisions in a vacuum a little bit. we're at the tile store. now we're at the plumbing store. now.

We're here, okay, feels like it's in a vacuum, the designer's not letting it be in a vacuum. Now though, we introduce them their full design board. This is what we're building. And it's a ton of fun. We'll have drinks, we have food brought in. We try to have a bunch of fun. After that's done, we also pair it with, you're going to go live on the construction side of co-construct. And then we educate them on, and this is how it works.

This is where your information will be in Co-Construct. This is how you use Co-Construct. This is what you need to be looking for while you're using Co-Construct.

Vince (04:28)
Right, and we do a lot of some of the same things. It's a little different with each customer. But what I really like about that phase is you do have that whole team there. Sometimes the architect will come, but most times not. They're done doing what they need to do. Yep. And same with the engineers, but the designer definitely. Your designers. And what I like about that too is your construction teams there. You've got your pre-construction team that has been, I mean, they've...

Nathan (04:46)
Yeah, into your

Vince (04:55)
they know it in and out. yes. And your construction team is busy in the field working on other projects, physically building those. They don't have that level of understanding and detail. so what I like about that official handoff is they're in the office and they're seeing it and seeing it all together. And I love to see the customers look on the face when they're like, they're seeing their construction team get to see it and get excited about it, right? Cause even though even the homeowners

kind of done with it, but like you said, they get to see it all together. Together, yeah. We've got a set, at that point, we review the plans, right? They're now clear, concise, complete. I'm sure the field team, in our case, the field teams have reviewed it. Then the field team gets to point out interesting things in that meeting that they may be able to set the table for the construction phase, because when we do that handoff meeting,

It's like the pre-construction team hands it off to the construction team. There's a physical and our physical handshake that the pre-construction team is now saying we've committed and we are now delivering you a completed set of plans, specifications, details that we have now completed our work. You should be able to take this. You better be able to take this. We hope whatever word you want to use that.

the construction team has faith that that package you're handing over, sometimes it's physical package, most of the time it's a co-constructor, builder trend or resio or something like that. It's a physical, it's electronic handoff, but they're now taking responsible for what you've put together and are gonna go put it on the ground. know, does knowing that that's coming makes the internal team, the pre-construction team had that level of responsibility.

to make sure it's right because it has to now go get built with all the hard work that's right. And the field team has to trust the, the pre-con team that it's going to get that they have what they need to now go build the home. But at that point then the homeowner now is handed off to the construction team and they shake hands. And now that's going to be their first point of contact during the construction, the pre-con team, including me or you.

are not going to be out there physically building their house day to day. We're going to be there as visionaries, checking it out, important meetings, because at this handoff, we present to the homeowner the important site meetings. In our case, there's nine. It's the nine step kind of meeting process that's going to ensure we're staying on track during the build, you know, at different phases. entire team's going to be at those meetings, including the interior designer.

And in some instances, we might have the engineer architect there as well. ⁓ So that's what we really like about that is the responsibility handoff, so to speak. ⁓ How do you handle that with your site team that might be a little different, if at all?

Nathan (08:02)
No, not different. That's what we're doing at that meeting is it's a handoff. And as you call it, as the industry calls it, we want it to be a warm handoff, not a cold handoff. And we in the past, when we got too busy, did cold handoffs where it's like, you know, a site super they never met is on Co-construct being like, Hey, can you meet me at the house? We're doing your pad. And the customer's like, who is this? Right. And so now we're making a lot more of a transition from, no, you're coming from here to here.

This is now the team that's going to be in charge of taking you to the finish.

Vince (08:36)
Yeah, that's the team that's adhering and bolstering those clear milestones.

Nathan (08:42)
And

what I want, what I want the listeners to understand is there's a difference. Your, your construction guys are, it's a difference of like, I know you get comfortable with your pre-con team, but the reason that we have people doing pre-construction stuff is that's their strengths. We have construction doing construction cause that's their strengths. Okay. And so we want you to feel comfortable moving over to this team because this team is going to give you the best.

Delightfulness and satisfaction in construction.

Vince (09:14)
And that team has already built that deep relationship. And if they don't have the deep relationship, they know how to handle and they are skilled. As you mentioned, they're talented and skilled at working with and handling subcontractors. That's right. Which is way different. See, a lot of people don't understand this. A lot of times with all of our vendors, trades and tradespeople, the people that are estimating their plans and our pre-construction team is working with...

at every vendor, at every trades company, they're not dealing with the guy in the field as not giving them the estimate to do install their plumbing or heating, right? They're dealing with the sales team and that different suite of people over at the trader, the vendor. Well, then they have subcontractors or employees that are physically going to be the ones that take what was completed on their side. They're doing the same handoff.

Yeah, that's right. essence. That's right. our listeners need to understand that the handoff is happening with us, which involves them, but there's all these behind the scenes handoffs that are happening with our tradespeople where they're handing it off from their sales team and development team to their field team, which is supervisors and people physically doing the work. Well, our field team are very skilled at working with their field team. That's right. And those are different skills. That is. That's a different set of...

expertise and knowledge, and that's why it's so important that everybody knows what they're doing and they're good at their role. Do you agree with that? I agree. What we like to discuss too at that meeting is timelines, right? Review the schedule again, set clear milestones, and then expectations of timelines. Just a recap of these are the phases.

Nathan (10:52)
Agree? Completely.

Vince (11:11)
We put Co-Construct in our case, or it could be Builder Trend or whatever, on the board. We show them the critical path method to their move-in. And we also then talk about any outstanding selections to keep on their plate. And when those are due, and show them in the system the deadline that's on every item. get them prepped that, this is party time, but there is a little bit of work to do.

And that's important. Do you do the same thing?

Nathan (11:46)
We are just now getting back in to the scheduling part of it. We obviously, we in the middle of 21 basically kept a schedule internal due to the amount of just unknown there was. And we also, had our schedule so public and our schedule was public because from 2015 to 2020, we pretty much stayed on schedule.

We knew how it operated. knew what we were doing. then 21 and 22, as you know, things changed, know, lead times changed, things changed. And so we are just now getting back into the rhythm of these are, we can actually give you clear expectations of when we think this will be done.

Vince (12:31)
That's nice, that's nice. And I really like it. I didn't do this, it's only been in the last couple of years that we've started doing this handoff. I think it's been a game changer. Emotionally, psychologically, that handoff takes a really long process and then is almost like you're starting anew. Yeah. And then you're...

Nathan (12:58)
That's right.

Vince (13:01)
taking it on through. Do you ever discuss with them again or recap? Because some customers I'll do it with and some I won't. The emotional roller coaster, we actually have a beautiful chart that shows the pre-con roller coaster. then once you get into construction, the construction roller coaster. It looks like a worm. It looks like somebody doing the worm. You want me to do it?

Nathan (13:22)
want you to do it for the audience. No, we bring it, yes, we bring that up multiple times during the build and we usually bring it up at the low points of the build of trying to remind our customer that what they are feeling is not abnormal. Hey, this is normal. We didn't even make the emotional roller coaster. Somebody else made it, but it follows you, it follows.

Anybody in construction just because you're building with us or building with you or building with somebody else These are the low points in the build somebody else built this out and it's usually right. So we'll show them. Yes, we know This is frustrating or this is a weird point. We get it. We know it we want to work through it, but this isn't abnormal. This is normal

Vince (14:08)
Yeah, yeah. I'd be glad to hand out a copy of that. it's funny that... Yeah, yeah. No, I might charge for this one, actually. I'm all bonused out, everybody. But, you you look at that roller coaster, right, just to take people along for the ride real quick, and then we're gonna bring this roller coaster into the station and send them on their way.

Nathan (14:16)
if you will.

Vince (14:36)
to get ready for the next episode. think we can do this in the next five minutes, which means bear with us for 25.

Nathan (14:41)
Yeah,

I was gonna say, there's zero chance. We haven't hit a time yet.

Vince (14:44)
No, no, not indicative of how we build. Let current history not be an indicator of...

Nathan (14:49)
serious.

That's right. That's exactly right.

Vince (14:58)
So what we say is, you start on that roller coaster from permitting, right? Is when you get on it and you start, right? It's building, you're going through the clearing and grading and you got machines out there, it's exciting, it's building momentum, excitement to the top. You get your foundation poured, slabs poured, stem walls, all that done, and you get to the top. And I think the highest precipice besides move-in is framing.

Nathan (15:27)
mean, for sure. because you get to actually it framing goes relatively quickly for how big these homes are and there's visual progress.

Vince (15:27)
Do you agree?

That's right. And so much happens so fast. It goes from nothing to this is my house. Yep. And then after that, you start getting, it starts down the incline with your dry in, exterior cladding, windows. then you get into that bottom because mechanicals, you can't see that happening as fast on the inside of the home. That's right. It's like they're there working,

Nathan (15:51)
and

Vince (16:06)
they can only put up so much duct work, run so many feet of wire. I mean, there's miles of wiring that go in a home, if not tens of miles of going to a home. And all that takes time to go in, but it's not that framing where you get those big changes in the day to day. So what we find is we get to that bottom where we're trying to get through mechanicals, right? And once we get there, we also have a mechanical party, right?

Once we get those in, because it's low, we'll usually bring a customer to dinner or something like that. And then it starts back up another, not as tall peak as the framing, but it starts back up as you start to get the installation in to the top, which is drywall, because then it changes the look and feel again. That's right. I say it's not that high because in framing, when it's done, it feels much bigger when you go in, because you're seeing through stud walls. You know the rooms are there.

Yeah. Right. And you can see the outline and you're walking in them, your eyes are looking past sometimes the stud walls into other rooms. So it feels bigger. And so why I say that next peak is not as high is because it's a high, cause it's now changed again. It's exciting. It's drywall, but it starts to put ⁓ parameters to it. know, there's visual stops to walls and then you really start to see how big the rooms are. Yep. Now I will say,

drywall being that lightish gray, off-gray color is a little bit dreary to me. I wish it was white, but it's a little bit dreary to me, which makes rooms feel a little smaller and there's no mechanical light. So I always tell customers at that phase, don't freak out. It's gonna feel bigger once we start getting paint on the walls again. Do you agree?

Nathan (17:56)
Well, ours is different. I think our rooms look bigger when they get drywall in them. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Ours is that we feel like people like it's funny because it's like they see the foundation go in. no, the house isn't big enough. And we're like, well, it's 5,000 feet. It's big enough. Framing goes up. you think these rooms are going to be, Hey, your depth perception is off because you're looking through it. Once we put a wall up, you're going to actually feel how big this room is. Yeah. Drywall goes up. this is a big one.

Vince (18:00)
Other than

Exactly. So, yeah, I guess that's a good point.

Nathan (18:26)
different for us. My drywall, I don't know what kind of drywall you're using. Mine's is... I was gonna say, why is this so gray? What kind of drywall? What kind of drywall?

Vince (18:30)
Get mine from China.

Don't get it from China, but it's probably a premium. So anyway, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make any fun of you. ⁓ But I think the big key is that roller coaster continues on until it gets back into the station, meaning it'll move in. But the big thing I stress with that roller coaster gives us an opportune time to say, see how this roller coaster's moving? It's moving.

And this is why we stress so hard in pre-construction to have those selections made, because now you see the physical roller coaster going and you're on it now, You're on it, baby. Buckle in, buckle down. ⁓ Now changes that they make are now going to cost us way more time. so they're starting to see now, I'm thankful we made those selections. I'm thankful we took all that time because changes now that I can see this, how it's going to work.

is gonna take a lot of our time. That's right. And cost more because we've now gotta somehow stop this ⁓ roller coaster at a part of the ride. And I don't know if you've ever been on a roller coaster when it stops at the top or something or upside down. Have you seen that? I've seen it. Basically what we're doing during construction is we're going to stop your roller coaster and boy, we hope it's not in a loop-de-loop. Typically it is because we're ringing the money out of it. Can you see? They're upside

Nathan (19:56)
Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right.

Yeah, it's...

Side-dare upside-

Vince (20:03)
That

is the case, know, because we are at that point. It's a funny analogy, right? And I'm glad I came up with this. Just now. So smart. Just now. Yeah, just now. Yeah, I That's really what happens. You're upside down a lot of times on this. At that point, we've warned you enough as your builder, don't make changes. Our subcontractors are going to hit us with change order fees and everything's going to be more expensive because you've got to rush it, because we need it. And you're now upside down.

and the builder has no control of it, and you probably don't either, because we just have to be subject to using our best tools to try to beat our, and keep the price down, but the dirty little secret is your pockets are gonna start emptying because of things that you now have to pay for that you wouldn't normally be there ahead of time. I guess getting caught on the top of the... ⁓

What are we on again? What does this seem Well, we were... Escalating? We were doing it. Roller coaster.

Nathan (21:03)
We

were doing a handoff, now we're on a roller coaster.

Vince (21:05)
Now

we're on a roller coaster. I guess the celebration's over. That is a short lived like anything in construction.

Nathan (21:12)
Friday! No, we're just kidding, you're on a roller coaster upside down, getting pickpocketed.

Vince (21:16)
We're gonna die!

Nathan (21:18)
But yes, the pre-construction handoff is very important and I'm with you. We did not always do a great job. And we are working towards doing a much better job at that and celebrating it. But you made a great point in this. It's kind of a short-lived celebration. We still got work to do, but we like to celebrate certain moments along the way too. Cause we're like, man, we put a ton of work in, let's celebrate.

Vince (21:43)
Yes. Yeah. And we'll try to even out and we'll try to... And you're right. I'm a dark individual, I guess, sometimes. I do... I mean, you're a... I mean, I don't know. I'm sure by now, halfway through our season, the listeners kind of figured out who the optimist and who the pessimist is.

Nathan (22:00)
no, let's ask him. DM us and let us know.

Vince (22:02)
No, please don't. I already know the answer to that overwhelmingly. I'm a pessimist at heart, unfortunately, it's with my Italian heritage. Everybody's a pessimist.

Nathan (22:12)
He

makes great meatball subs if you remember from the second episode, which I ate on camera.

Vince (22:18)
We don't do that again. Well, I'm... But yeah, you know, and that's the thing is, it is a time to celebrate. It's a time to be optimistic. And if it's done right, it will be a fun process. And that roller coaster is going to be a lot funner. There's not gonna be the times where you're upside down. You've done your best to try to avoid that. ⁓ And those pessimistic thoughts should be minimized. That's right. Right? ⁓ I just know horror stories from the customers that don't do it.

I just wanna get started with just enough to start the Jets syndrome. it just becomes kind of a really nasty roller coaster. It becomes nasty. It's like.

Nathan (22:55)
Well, and like you talked, it's not only money, it's time. And we've been on those rides. We've been on, and what I want the customer to know is the reason we're pushing on this so hard is we've been on those roller coaster rides. And I need you to know that just as much non-fun it is for the customer, it's the same for the builder. We don't want to be on the ride like that either. That's not what we're in business to do. We're in business to build houses timely and where customers like them. That's why we got into this. We did not get into this to...

have phone calls and conversations with unhappy customers. There's no reason, that's not what we want to do, but we just as an industry and as builders ourselves have to be so much stronger at saying, no, we're going to do pre-construction. We can't start until these things are done.

Vince (23:40)
Yep. Amen. Amen. And then that makes this so much better. And I think with that, we could probably be done, right? In terms of we've partied, we're going to have fun, we're going to get this thing started. It's been handed off. We're done. Let's go. Yep. We just got to do the walkout. Who are you guys?

Nathan (23:59)
Alright, I thought we were done. No, but yes the party though. Look for this. This is a great milestone We took you through pre-construction It was long it's going to be long buckle up for it to be long ⁓ But fun have fun guys. You're putting your house together. Have a good time and and that's what I would I hope you learned from this is is Man get started because if you're like, well, we want to wait and then

If the day you finally call the builders the day you want to start, well you're six months away from starting. You know, and maybe in your case nine, it may be six months of pre-construction and probably in three months of per-

Vince (24:37)
It's

a year, know, I tell customers now pre-construction is going to be probably about a year to do it right for a high-end custom wall that's being drawn from scratch.

Nathan (24:45)
three months that that's permitting. You know? so when you get there, know that this is going to take time. And you're right. The pre-construction process, you have to be ready to sign up for that and to willing to put in the work. Because if you put in the work, the outcome is going to be a much more enjoyable process for you. And if we just start your home to get it started, nobody's going to be

Vince (25:09)
It's gonna fit into Dirty Little Secrets. It's gonna finish at the same time anyways, but with a whole lot of chaos. Trust me, it's going to take the same amount of time to build your home, whether you go through a thorough pre-construction or you don't. Or you just just, you wanna kill someone at the end? Or do you wanna move in and say, was an enjoyable experience and I'd recommend them. That's right. And maybe I do it again. There's a lot of people that I know that have built a home that love their home, but they don't wanna go through that process again. that's right. It's the majority of people. Yeah, yeah. So, well, we hope that you found this

episode interesting. ⁓ And we hope that your builder or your remodeler of choice does that. We hope you'll select us if you're in our markets. If you've got any questions about the pre-con entire process we've been going over the last bunch of episodes, please feel free to DM us. Please like this and give us a rating and review if you haven't already. Five stars are always great. Only great. And please follow along with us.

on YouTube or all your podcast channels. And next week, we're gonna be diving in to ⁓ construction and timelines. We'll start with timelines and what to expect for the timeline of construction and those. So stay tuned. Thanks so much for joining us today. We'll see you next time.