Balancing Independence Day Celebrations and Critical Construction Deadlines

Ever wondered how to strike the perfect balance between celebrating a national holiday and meeting crucial construction deadlines? Join us as Carolyn and Joshua McMahon share their unique insights on managing Independence Day festivities while keeping construction projects on track. Discover the cultural nuances involved, including how non-American workers also take the day off, and learn about the pivotal "closing season" in construction. We'll unpack strategies for a strong finish, from hiring specialized punch crews to understanding the financial implications that can affect project budgets.

Feeling the pressure of a homeowner walkthrough? We’ve got you covered with practical tips to address both minor and major issues, ensuring a seamless transition for new homeowners. Learn about the importance of a detailed homeowner orientation, and how bonus structures influence the quality of work completed before closing. We round out the episode with effective house closing techniques, featuring Thomas Howell’s aggressive approach to list management. Amid the current challenges, we share a bit of humor about our holiday plans and our dog’s aversion to fireworks, wishing you a safe and exciting holiday season.

Chapters

• 0:02 Finishing a House
• 13:02 Maximizing Homeowner Walkthrough Efficiency
• 24:04 Effective House Closing Techniques

Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:02

oh, I love that, I love that hey y'all, welcome back to another episode of feed me your construction content.

Speaker 1: 0:09

I'm carolyn mcmahon I'm joshua mcmahon happy independence day eve yes, when this drops, it'll be july 4th a day to work. Okay, let's talk about that a little bit, just for one second. Okay, then we'll get to the point of the show. When do you start celebrating independence? Well, let me answer the question for you. Don't wake up and slam a beer and you're like america f? Yeah, that is not how you celebrate july 4th. You probably sleep in, you drink some coffee, you read your book, you do journaling and all that other stuff, you do some yard work and around three o'clock you fire up the grill, you cook out and then you blow stuff up. That's July 4th. So I don't understand why we would take off a day in the middle of the week. Let's celebrate July 4th on Friday or Monday, whatever makes the most sense, but give me a three dayday weekend. I want some value for my day off.

Speaker 2: 1:09

Well listen, you propositioned your people with this idea.

Speaker 1: 1:14

I did. That's exactly right. You can take and work July 4th and have July 5th off, or you can take July 4th off and work on July 5th, or you can take the 4th off and then take a personal day on the 5th.

Speaker 2: 1:27

I vote the latter.

Speaker 1: 1:29

You know, everybody's got their own preference. But here's the funniest part is, I was scheduling people for work, and this episode we'll really get into it. I'm scheduling trades for doing punch work tomorrow, on July 4th, and the number of people that said, oh, my people are off today, I'm like it's an American holiday. A lot of my workers are not American, right? They're Spanish descent, but they're celebrating July 4th. I just find it odd, right, because the business owners, they're still working. I had talked to the concrete guy. He said I'm working, my people won't work, though.

Speaker 2: 2:08

Well, I mean, is that like saying if you're an atheist, you can't get off Christmas Day?

Speaker 1: 2:13

Why would you take it off? Why would you take it off? Why are you celebrating something you don't believe in? Because we're opportunists. Oh, there we go. Oh, there we go, that's exactly right.

Speaker 2: 2:25

Duh.

Speaker 1: 2:26

Everybody hates something unless it benefits them, and then it's okay, we're okay with it.

Speaker 2: 2:32

Right, so you were scheduling folks on Independence Day. For what task that was so important.

Speaker 1: 2:38

Closing season, babe, closing season. We've got to get this house closed.

Speaker 2: 2:43

Okay.

Speaker 1: 2:44

And there is no time that I dislike more than closing season. It is the most stressful time. Everybody is at their wits end. The customers are at their wits end, the team, everybody is tired.

Speaker 2: 3:01

Yeah, when you get to the end of the project, the last thing you want to do it's like this bottleneck is do punch on a house. It's terrible we talked about it earlier that we hated doing it on our own house. There's stuff that we still haven't done.

Speaker 1: 3:14

Because we hate it.

Speaker 2: 3:15

Because we hate it. It just it gums up the works. No one wants to do it. It's not very satisfactory to get done, I mean, but to your buyer it's how you finish.

Speaker 1: 3:28

Well, that's everything that matters to them. I mean, you could have a really difficult build with the customer and with yourself and everybody's upset and then have a really strong finish. That's what they'll remember forever. It's how you finish is what people remember. They don't remember that you started a house early. They remember how you finished. So the point of this whole episode is it's all about finishing a house and what do you do to get it done. Here's the reality. I don't care what side of the business you're in commercial, custom residential production we all deal with it. We all have a punch list at the end of the day. We all have a quality list at the end of the day that we are scrambling to get done. And kudos to Boone man. Boone hired every single punch person in the market so nobody could have their own punch people. What do you guys have, like an army of 55 punch people on your staff?

Speaker 2: 4:21

Nah, like unbelievable. No, no, no, just three really good people that get it done.

Speaker 1: 4:25

Oh man, you guys have got them like standing there on the bench waiting. I'm like, hey, I want to get a punch guy Say no, no, no, I'm waiting in line for Boone. They're first.

Speaker 2: 4:36

I mean, heck, we do it right. But let's talk about that. You know, I'm not sure if this was in the itinerary for today, but does your company employ punch people?

Speaker 1: 4:47

It's hard. I mean, some companies do hire punch people, Some don't. It depends on your budget. It depends on how much of your margin you're willing to erode. But if you look at the big picture I think there's value in it. But it just all depends on your company and how you came up.

Speaker 2: 5:04

Right and how you came up Right and how you're structured. I remember working with Stylecraft and we would go into variance meetings and things like that and the guys in the field would hire a punch company. What are they running? $650, $750, $1,000 a day or more.

Speaker 1: 5:22

Oh no, no, no, it all depends. You can find punch people at $25 an hour, up to $100 an hour. Yeah, I just remember we were stroking checks for $750,000, $1,000, that kind of thing you might have multiple people in there then, but it really does all depend.

Speaker 2: 5:39

Right. Okay, but just table that for a second. It's still $1,000, right? And if you build 300 homes a year?

Speaker 1: 5:47

You spend $300,000 in punch.

Speaker 2: 5:49

Yeah, let's do some math here.

Speaker 1: 5:51

That's just the labor part. You're not even including the materials.

Speaker 2: 5:53

Right, and did they spend that much on every house? No, you know. I think that you could probably tell who was spending money and who wasn't. You know who is getting your trades back in the house to fix deficiencies, who was lazy and, just you know, hired a punch guy.

Speaker 1: 6:09

Yep.

Speaker 2: 6:10

But it's there. So Boone does hire an employee, punch people to get it done and they do amazing work and they go the distance. I mean we're very grateful to have them.

Speaker 1: 6:23

I'm in favor of having a punch person on the staff, because that punch person is not just sitting around waiting for the house to be finished. They can be doing customer service work, slash warranty. They can be helping with framing checks. They can be helping with framing punch. There's things that they can be doing throughout the build to keep themselves employed and also really beneficial to you, the builder.

Speaker 2: 6:43

We have a warranty person too, and also really beneficial to you, the builder.

Speaker 1: 6:46

We have a warranty person too.

Speaker 2: 6:49

Well, scratch everything.

Speaker 1: 6:50

I just said, but I'm in favor of a punch person and in my world, my custom world, I'm looking for a punch person to bring on and I want someone who's hungry and wants to learn and grow and we can really build them into a superintendent and even more. And that individual is out there and I'm going to find them no-transcript. Let's go through just a couple of the processes that we think most builders do Quality assurance walk. I think most builders probably do a QA walk. I think most of the time it's done by somebody outside of the team that's physically building the house.

Speaker 2: 7:23

I think that's the best way to do it. You become blind to it.

Speaker 1: 7:28

Oh yeah, you're just checking boxes. If you want me to check my own work, yeah, it's all good, I look at it every day. I don't need to go walk it again and look at this checklist.

Speaker 2: 7:35

Right. Well, the funniest thing today was we're decorating a new model and I was at the house today and Big John, I mean gosh, how tall is that dude?

Speaker 1: 7:45

Six, five six, six, five. Oh, he's like eight foot three. I mean good God.

Speaker 2: 7:49

He's very tall and while I am not short, my perspective is a little different.

Speaker 1: 7:55

Yeah, very true.

Speaker 2: 7:56

What I see and I was like, hey, I'll check the stuff. That's, you know, under five feet, check it over. You know, like I had noticed a cabinet door and had a paint defect. I'm like hey, do you know if this door is on order?

Speaker 1: 8:12

And he's like, honestly, I didn't even see it Right, because that was beneath him.

Speaker 2: 8:15

For real, that was beneath him. But yeah, can you imagine, you know, checking your own work Number one. You don't want to say it's deficient even though, like you, didn't physically build the house, um, but yeah, you're not. You're not going to see that thing. So an outside person, whether it's team member, another super, even an outside company, a lot of builders are hiring home inspectors to kind of do that walk too and that's good for marketing, right? Like hey, we even hire our own home inspector.

Speaker 1: 8:49

I don't think it's so much for marketing. I think it's good because it's an unbiased opinion. That's why I think it's great for you to go out there as a design manager and walk the house and look at things, because you're thinking about the selections and what was in the house and you're saying that light fixture is not correct. So you're catching things that we're not thinking about in the construction side.

Speaker 2: 9:08

But you know, what's so frustrating is that during my career you'd have five different people walk a house and they'd come up with five unique lists Every day. It'll never flipping end. You know things that you know you may focus in on. I will completely miss.

Speaker 1: 9:25

That's the nature of it and that's why you have to build to a standard. The builder has to have a set standard of what we expect you to meet, and you hit that minimum standard. Yes, I want it to be better, but have you met the minimum standard? And if yes, this is an item we would like to make better, but it's not an item you have to fix.

Speaker 2: 9:45

Yes, there's a box that you check that is like yep, that's good enough.

Speaker 1: 9:49

Well, you know it sounds bad when you put it that way, but you have to have a minimum standard. If you don't, you burn through all of your cash trying to make some people happy that you'll never make happy.

Speaker 2: 9:59

Well, sure, I mean, it's a sliding scale all the time.

Speaker 1: 10:04

Absolutely so. On that QA list, create your list, and this is the real key Go, room by room, check every single electrical fixture, every single plumbing fixture, use everything. Like I used to joke with my teams, I want you to go in there and take a shower I thought you were gonna race, you take a shit. You can't say shit on the air, babe oh shit okay, but if you go in there and you take a shower and you use the toilet and you use the sink, is the hot water working? How long?

Speaker 1: 10:37

does it take to get hot water is an inconvenience.

Speaker 2: 10:39

You know firsthand what it is I don't know, they didn't buy that recirculating water heater, so, yes, it's going to take two minutes to get well.

Speaker 1: 10:46

But then when you do your orientation with the customer, you say yep, it takes about two minutes to get water to this fixture. This is the furthest in the line. That is what it is and you can explain it up front and educate them before they call you 30 days later and say I'm not getting any hot water at the sink. It's like, ma'am, remember how we had the discussion on the home orientation? You signed right here. So verify the operation of everything and I think if you physically use it, you really know if it works and doesn't work, because you can walk things, you can look at it and everything looks great. That 30-day list or 45 or 90 or whatever list you do the first one, you might be shocked, but you would have found it in that period. Once you get that list this is the most critical spot the team, the construction team, whoever's overseeing the work getting done be diligent about getting those items corrected. Don't wait around and let's dive into that here once we go through the home orientation. So the next step is typically a week later home orientation In the home orientation you can't stress this enough In the home orientation. You can't stress this enough. It is not a deficiency walk. It is not a deficiency walk.

Speaker 1: 11:58

Every customer thinks oh my God, I got to go in there and find all of the problems that the builder is hiding from me. That is not the need for the orientation, because here's what you're going to find, mr and Mrs Homeowner. You're going to find every drywall and paint imperfection in the house. I'll refund you the $100 for the imperfections that you found, if that's what you'd like me to do, because that's what it would cost to fix the items that you found. You need to pay attention to the $10,000 worth of cabinets, the $5,000 in countertops, the $10,000 in tile. You need to pay attention to the function of things. That's what matters, because this walk you're signing things away. You're accepting what you have in that house.

Speaker 2: 12:39

Well, right, but isn't that the fear is that they're accepting the drywall imperfections. Are you suggesting that they don't have an opportunity to find cosmetic defects?

Speaker 1: 12:50

So drywall is great because most builders will do a one-year drywall point up. Yeah, nail pops are normal.

Speaker 2: 12:56

Okay, cool. Yeah, nail pops are normal, but that's what I'm asking. Are you saying that, as a homeowner, I should not have those things fixed when I move in?

Speaker 1: 13:08

If it's something that you think is a problem, get it fixed. I'm not saying, don't have it fixed, okay, because most of us, most builders, will do a homeowner blue dot and we'll fix drywall. What I'm saying is homeowners get fixated and the only thing they see is drywall and paint. They're oblivious to everything else and you're missing the most important things.

Speaker 2: 13:26

Sure, I mean you called it earlier. That's your nickel problem.

Speaker 1: 13:30

That's what it is. You've got an $800,000 house and you're looking at the $0.05 drywall. It's the easiest thing in the house to fix and it's the one thing that like. I'm probably not going to argue with you about it, I'm just going to do it right. And most builders like the best lesson I ever got was if I could solve every problem with $200, I wouldn't have any problems. Drywall can be solved with $200. Most builders that are worth their salt are not going to waste their time fighting you over a $200 fix. Just make it go away. Now you want to fight about these. Doors on the cabinets need to be replaced. No, that's a different story. It's a lot more expensive, it's more difficult and if it's not documented on the orientation of the closing walk, it doesn't exist, I'm sorry. So let's walk the customer through.

Speaker 1: 14:17

Create your own process, your own system for going room by room, and the way I do it is I pick the room, maybe the farthest to the left, and I start in the left and I work my way around to the left and show them everything how it works. Function of the windows you got single hunt, double hunt, casement. Whatever windows you have, do they operate? Does the customer know how to operate them. Not every customer has had a single hunt window. They don't know how to operate the window or how to pull it out, how to take the sash out. It's good stuff, right.

Speaker 2: 14:46

Riveting.

Speaker 1: 14:49

For some customers. You want to help them understand that, because what happens when they move in and they don't remember? They don't know how to do something. Oh, now you got to run over there and deal with this service call to show them how to open and close the window. So take the opportunity to show them how that stuff works Same thing, plumbing, electrical. Do all that stuff. Take the opportunity to show them how that stuff works Same thing, plumbing, electrical. Do all that stuff.

Speaker 1: 15:12

And then note all your deficiencies, anything that they see. And here's the thing that I would do too, as I'm doing the walk, if I saw something that I might have missed before, because every day you can see something different. Note it. Nope, nope, that does not meet my minimum standard. Note it. You're building confidence with the customer that you're not trying to walk them through like Ray Charles. You don't see anything. Everything's good, Everything's good. Let's go, Go, Keep going. No, I want you to find it today, because it's a hell of a lot easier for me to fix it in the next week than it is after you move in.

Speaker 2: 15:40

Well, what about those companies that part of your bonus structure is based on a homeowner walk, or how many items you have, and are they fixed by the closing date? Because usually there's what about a week or so, four or five days in between your homeowner orientation and the actual settlement of the home.

Speaker 1: 16:06

That's exactly right.

Speaker 2: 16:07

And a lot of folks are just, you know, they do go through it quickly. They don't want to note anything more than what they have to, because their bonus could be at stake.

Speaker 1: 16:19

There are companies that I've worked at that did that, and there were people who would paper whip the paperwork to where they got their bonus and the items weren't done and then everything fell to the warranty department to pick up the slack.

Speaker 2: 16:31

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 16:32

And it was terrible. It was always disappointing to me. Yeah, I came up in warranty, so it was something that bothered me. But you create the game and they're going to play so that you put a bonus in place. People are going to figure out a way to get it because their salary is probably lower, so they've got to rely on that bonus.

Speaker 2: 16:50

Right, yeah, yeah, your total compensation.

Speaker 1: 16:55

Yeah, more on that later, all right, so look, now you've got a quality assurance list and you've got a home orientation list. This is really the meat of this entire podcast and this is where you really earn your money. Take that list and break it down by trade. Why trade If you've got an eight page list? You send the entire eight pages to every trade that you have and say get your work done by this date.

Speaker 2: 17:19

Totally Cause. I'm an a-hole.

Speaker 1: 17:21

Yeah, but then I'm like well, what parts are mine? Well, I don't know either, so F it, I'm not doing it.

Speaker 2: 17:25

Yeah, I remember seeing lists, you know, taped to the countertop, you know, with you know Ryko Foster, you know I mean whatever.

Speaker 1: 17:33

Sure.

Speaker 2: 17:34

And they would identify who's who's what.

Speaker 1: 17:37

Yeah, and then you just come in there and you'd work on your list. So I'm okay with that part, but here's what I would always like to do Break down the list by trades, prioritize the items that you really want to focus on. You, as the construction manager, superintendent, whatever your role is you want to focus on the items that are going to be the heaviest items, the most difficult things to get done. You want to be focused on that. Focus on your lawn, lead items, what material needs to be ordered? Make sure you're doing that. And, folks, when we're talking about this, this is in the first hour after you've completed that walk you don't do anything else but go in there and break down this list. In the next hour, you need to have that list broken down by all of your trades and emailed the individual list to each trade with the date you need them to be at the job.

Speaker 2: 18:25

Well. So I have a question about that. You know when? When have you walked a house and never had drywall point up?

Speaker 1: 18:33

Never.

Speaker 2: 18:34

So are they. Are they already scheduled?

Speaker 1: 18:36

Yes, the drywall and paint should be scheduled before you do the walk. So you know you're going to do a quality assurance walk on this date. I know the very next day, or whatever my schedule is drywalls this day. They're standing on this date. I know the very next day, or whatever my schedule is drywall's this day. They're standing on this day and they're painting on this day.

Speaker 2: 18:51

Right. So it's not like oh crap, what do you mean? You can't come for three or four days or whatever. You already have that teed up.

Speaker 1: 18:57

Drywall and paint is an automatic. If you don't have that scheduled before you do the walk, you are doing yourself a massive disservice, right? Because 50% of your problems are drywall and paint. So you're right. Great point. Get out there and schedule it and have it nailed down. Now, once you've emailed out this list to all of your trades, back up one second the drywall point up, go in there and blue tape it, or talk to your drywall company, because some of them do not want you to blue tape it. I'm a fan of using a pencil or a quarter or something of that nature and circling the defects, because you can go directly over it with the mud and then you can paint right over it and the mark is gone. If you blue tape it, it increases the amount of work that they have to do, which makes them frustrated. They're good at drywall. Maybe they're not good at removing tape, so keep it simple. After you've sent that list out, you've emailed it to every trade. You follow up with a phone call or a text to get a confirmation. I've sent you your list.

Speaker 1: 20:02

Community X, lot Y this is the day I need you there. Can you make it? This is a pull tactic, right? I'm pulling you to the dates I need. Then, if they're like well, I don't know if I can do it, now you start pushing. I've tried it the easy way. I've tried to be the good guy. I don't have time to be the good guy. I got to go and I need you here on this day doing these activities, and this is what it needs to be, and I need your buy-in.

Speaker 2: 20:29

Yeah, and especially if you don't have a punch person on your staff.

Speaker 1: 20:33

Yes, because most of us don't have a punch person on staff and you're not always going to be able to get the punch person. But your first course of action is to get your trades running through there. You've already paid them to do the work. It's not like you're asking them to do you a damn favor, but you've got to call them. You've got to tee them up Now, track that list every single day and I would say three times a day. I am looking at the list and I am talking to trades. I am very, very engaged, like I am super focused on this list, this home, and I'm asking questions and you're like, didn't we just talk about this three hours ago? I'm like, yeah, I just need to double check. You've got to constantly double check and if you do that, trades will respond and trades will come out on July 4th and do work for you.

Speaker 2: 21:24

So how many people do you have teed up for tomorrow? All?

Speaker 1: 21:26

right. So I got the punch guy coming out tomorrow. I've got the framer coming out tomorrow, which he told me no, three times and I was like dude, this is not a difficult repair, I'll be there. I got the material in the truck. How about you come out there and help me fix this thing, by the way, since this is your screw up anyways and you're creating this massive problem for me because it's not just fixing. I got a framing issue. You're not fixing a framing issue. I got to do the framing, then I got to get the plumber to do it, then I got to get the drywall back in, then I got to get it painted. Cleaned. Five people how many days can I lose if I got five people coming into that house on one item?

Speaker 2: 22:00

yeah, and I mean you gosh, you're at the finish line we're done and you have a framing issue that's right holy crap, it was a coordination issue that we didn't catch.

Speaker 1: 22:11

The coordination being the finishing detail of the tile in the tub and the way it was centered on the window and in this space, had to be perfect. We missed it by eight inches oh, wait a minute.

Speaker 2: 22:22

We're talking about that defect. I thought you were talking about the other one the other one might not be as bad.

Speaker 1: 22:28

We open it up okay I feel really good about it now that I've seen it we'll talk off off yeah, that one's offline yeah on that one. But things are in motion, they're going to be there. So framer, punch guy painter will be there. My superintendent will be there, I'll be there, the customer will be there.

Speaker 2: 22:46

Oh, because he opted to work tomorrow and take Friday off. Yep, he wants to work and take Friday off. Heck, yeah, and I'm like great, let's go.

Speaker 1: 23:02

Let's get some work done we got an eight page punch list.

Speaker 2: 23:04

I've broken it all down. I've got all the trades lined up. You're ready with some door bumps.

Speaker 1: 23:06

Nope, I got to get the trade in there to do that. I'm not doing that.

Speaker 2: 23:09

What that's easy.

Speaker 1: 23:10

I don't have the material. The material has to be the same as the doors.

Speaker 2: 23:14

Ah heck.

Speaker 1: 23:15

But there's a lot of low-hanging fruit on there that we can knock out and I think that we can take an eight-page list down to two pages if we're focused and we get after it and we don't waste a day. Now we fast forward a week. The list is done, or mostly done. Now it's time to do the closing walk Walk with the customer through the house. What are we focused on? We're not focused on finding new items. We're taking the list and we're showing them how we've made the correction and we're within tolerance or we're meeting the minimum standard, and we get them to sign off on each item. That's showing that they accept what we've done. And if they don't accept what we've done, document it. Document the items that are maybe we need to negotiate or we need to work on later or something, and then set a timeline for when you're going to get it done.

Speaker 1: 24:04

We all close houses. If you're building houses, everybody closes them. Everybody hates closing them because it sucks, it's very stressful. But I'm telling you, if you take that list and you break it down and you charge forward with every single minute, you will be super successful compared to how things are going today. And if you're already doing this, then great. I mean, thomas Howell does it better than anybody that I know, and he is super aggressive about that list and he breaks it down exactly the way we just said it.

Speaker 2: 24:37

Oh, did he learn that from somebody?

Speaker 1: 24:39

Perhaps, Maybe, he learned some good lessons Only the good stuff from me, though, not the bad stuff, but this has been our episode. It's motivated by real world things happening today, and this is what we're doing today, right now, and the team is stressed out. I'm proud of what they're doing. I know they're going to come through this and I know they're going to be better for it.

Speaker 1: 25:01

When we do the next one, in 30 days, they'll be running the bus all right, or just run the bus over them that's the motto, hey we'll have a safe and uh fun holiday with your loved ones and blow some shit up for us not in goochland, though, because our dog hates it yeah our dog hates it.

Speaker 2: 25:21

We have to, you know, medicate her.

Speaker 1: 25:23

That's right, till next week.

Speaker 2: 25:27

See ya.

Speaker 1: 25:28

Yeah.