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You know, this may well be the worst time to be in the homebuilding business since I entered the business over forty years ago (and that’s saying something). We made it through the high inflation in the 1970’s, the high interest rates of the early 1980’s, the S&L meltdown, the dot.com crisis, the 9/11 slowdown and now this housing bubble mess.
We’re working hard though, and will close two houses this week and looks like we will write a contract on a house we have under construction and a presale to start very soon. Through the ups and downs and ins and outs, there are some great reasons I enjoy the business I’m in. Let me tell you a few of the reasons we do this.
- Independence. I get to be my own boss. Now, that can be tough, it takes discipline, and when things aren’t going well, you have to be inventive and determined. But there are no committee meetings to be held, no upper management decisions to be enforced, and no office politics. Also, while we have employees, most of them are in the field and thus, they have some independence, too. Some people don’t do well with that. But for those who enjoy being outside and controlling their work without a boss right over your shoulder, it’s a pretty great gig. People who are self- motivated can find a lot of satisfaction in the building industry.
- Creativity. One of the things we take pride in is that we do most of our own design work. We have our own drawing software (we used to do it by hand) and it allows us quickly to make changes in plans. We also design to eliminate waste and redundancy. Our staff gets to make selections on colors and contents on every inventory home we build. We aren’t bound to what is in a plan book, and we like it that way. We create our own marketing materials. We had input on creating our website. When we build a neighborhood, we even have to be creative about coming up with new street names! These days, we have to be creative about financing, and creative about value, and figure out solutions to things we have taken for granted in the past. So in that regard, a downturn like we have experienced requires us to be more creative than ever.
- Results driven. In the building business we get to see the results of our labor, a finished product, a manufacturing process from start to finish. Once in a long while I think about all the homes we’ve built over the years, or I’ll drive down a street and remember the homes we built and the people for whom we built them.
- People. As I’ve written in the past, nothing is more satisfying than the look on someone’s face when they purchase a home. That’s even more true if they have done it despite adversity and a lot of “no’s” along the way. Over the years, we’ve helped a lot of people learn how to be homeowners. Some of those people are repeat customers, and some tell friends, and some just tell us how much owning a home has meant to them, which they thought they would never be able to do.
- Security. You know, there are a lot of jobs that can be “outsourced.” And maybe one day people in China or India or South America will build homes and ship them here. We have panelized homes and modular homes and manufactured homes. But due to the bulky nature of a house, I don’t expect that the job of providing a home is going to move too far away. Now it may change, and we may have to adapt, but homebuilding is and will continue to be largely a local job. So, as long as there is growth, there will be a need for housing.
So, while these are dark days in the building business, they will not stay dark forever. And while I wish that now that the elections are over, everything would fall back into place, I know that is not realistic. What I do know is that this thing we do, “work”, for me is more than just making a living. There’s just something that feels good about building a house and having someone live in it, making it their “home.” |
