Updated 1.6.26

 

Let me show you an example of what happens in that mitigation. A home builder consultant just happens to know of a home that’s kind of on a really jacked up home site. Let me show you. I can find this one.

 

Yeah, those are steep, but.

 

That was that kind of the one right here. So this one right here, let me show this to you. Do you see where the bottom of the front door is? Do you see where the bottom of the garage is and how there’s several steps down to get to it? So this is what’s called stepping the foundation. So we had to do this on any steep home sites.

 

And you can kind of see from right to left how this is sloping down the hill. Do you see that kind of the sidewalk out here is the giveaway on this. The land is sloping downhill. Well, this is in Tennessee where it’s hilly as well. On top of there. I would always explain to people in your market, like you’re always going to deal with top of there for the most part.

 

Now ranch is a little unique, but, for the most part, you’re going to deal with Topo. So like in Red or even the Hills are trying to make everything like no steps, zero entering the front door, and then it just creates steepness in the yard and the driveway. Yeah. And that’s kind of the trade off, right? You’re you’re trying to get one and therefore you deal with the other.

 

But what you ultimately do is you do some extra blocks of foundation so that the driveway sits down and the garage floor sits down lower, and you’re going to have steps going up from the garage. You also, I don’t know if you noticed this, but normally on a very flat home site, like anything in Oklahoma or a flat as a board here, the top of the front door will typically be the same height as the top of the garage door.

 

So you can kind of see here that this is a stepped foundation by looking at this, does that make sense? So I would have a conversation. In fact, I would call and talk to maybe Jordan and Casey. Jordan’s going to be the one in charge of it, but I’d be talking to the guys about, are we doing anything to mitigate this for these people?

 

Yeah, I thought we had that kind of. Well, I made this, and I keep to myself, you know that. The truth about when you make an assumption, I guess. But I think I would just have the conversation again, though, and just circle back to it. Yeah, because I need to know, you know, and then Jordan’s like, well, it’s not that steep.

 

And like when you’re 27, Jordan, you’re not 70, right? You know, like you’re not the one that’s going to have to try and get a dumpster up and down this driveway. Right. What what are you guys doing? Yep. I hear yeah. Even Doug was even who’s in town. He’s like he said he was concerned about the steepness of 12.

 

I was definitely said you were going to step these down. And now here we’re building these and we that conversation was part of the way. Right.

 

A home builder consultant would circle back to them on it. And if you want me to I mean I’ll be glad to circle back. I should do it. I don’t want to sound like, you know, like he totaled to me that he’s frustrated with the steepness of these driveways. Yeah. I just need to talk to them, because in the future, I need.

 

Well, we don’t want another lot three situation. And as the salesperson, you do need to sometimes say to the builder, hey, you want me to sell this? You want this salable. We got to we got to address this situation. A any good builder listens to their salespeople when they tell them, what does or doesn’t sell. And if you’re you’re being mindful of those things, I think it’s really important that there’s a feedback chain up to the top.

 

At Shaw Homes, I’m just going to tell you, I listened to the salespeople a lot, and I sometimes they said stupid things and I was like, yeah, you don’t know what you’re talking about. But other times, like, they’re just they’re they’re in the field and they’re more observant. I mean, I had some salespeople who just didn’t know what they were talking about is what I’m saying.

 

You are not one of those people, and I think you’re bringing up a good point to be aware of.

 

I’m just past the point of return. I mean, obviously we recommend terrible things, foundations and do it over, but nope, it’s like the worst two clients it could have happened with in my mind. I guess I should have made more of a point in the beginning that we need to make sure that these were flat, but they’re not going to be like three are they know that are, for me, 2 or 3.

 

But they’re just beyond what I expected. Yeah.

 

A home builder consultant would just be onward and upward and see what happens. Then. If you’re saying they’re already in, the foundations are in for both of them. Yeah. Well, one of them, one a lot. 12 the foundation’s done it’s frame. They’re starting to set trusses today. For I asked Jordan, I was like, hey, is this one going to be as deep as that one?

 

Because this is the sister that’s really, you know, has a hard time getting around. He’s like, well, it’ll be about halfway between the model and that. Like, you know, the excavation was already being done. Yeah. Like it’s like looking to me. It looks like the top of the foundation ten feet away from this model home. I’m sitting in 11.

 

It’s going to be about three feet higher.

 

Which seems a lot to me. That is a lot, actually. And I could be wrong. I mean, I’m not I the boys are out there working and I want to get there. I wanted yeah I would have the conversation as soon as we get done and I would just say, hey, just one more time, ask him one more time because, you know, they let me put it this way, they don’t want those deals to bust more than you don’t want it to bust.

 

The builder has a bigger risk than you do, for sure, and they would much rather the customers happy even than you. So you got to understand that their perspective is, I don’t want to be stuck with both of these spec homes and lose my two buyers. That would not be good at all for the builder, so they should be more sensitive to that than you are.

 

Even once you. What am I to do in a situation like this? And I could be wrong. Maybe I’m just being worrisome about it. But you know, if if the sister that lives here in town help them through this whole thing drives by and comes, do I wait for her to come to me and say, tell me what?

 

What’s going on? How can these or so these are way cheaper than I thought they’re going to be. I thought you said they would be flat. Or do I reach out to them and say, do you want to look at this and see? I would not reach out to them because we’re not going to tear it out if it’s already done.

 

A home builder consultant would go to the guys as soon as possible and have this conversation and go, I’m worried that these customers are going to have a problem with this.

 

I would have that conversation as soon as possible with them. They should care more than you do. Yeah. And if they’re like, I don’t be fine. And they’re just like, whatever, I would not go call the customer and say, please come look at these driveways and tell if you’re okay.

 

That’s just, opening a can. You might not have to open. They may not say anything about it. Yeah, they might not. Yeah. Okay.

 

And when it happens, and if they do come in and go, I’m concerned about it. Just say, okay, let me have a conversation with the guys and I’ll get back to you. Don’t give them an answer. Right then, okay? You know, just put it off and let’s you and I talk about how to best try and mitigate the damage.

 

At that point. But yeah, we we did have that conversation with, Doug. Doug did say he doesn’t want to do that again. I don’t know if Casey and Jordan are aware that Doug said that.

 

And I understand there’s other things to take to consideration. You you ruined what needs to be done. The rest, you know, you can have, you know, slope for the home to drain properly and things like that. But that’s worked talked about coming up some solutions to mitigate that, whether it be a retaining wall step in the loss or right.

 

Yeah. So the the short answer is there’s not really a way for me to that’s not my current site plan. There’s no way to know either. You know, because things can be deceiving. It looks it looks great. Just if someone’s really adamant that they need to really, I just need to maybe say we need to talk to the team about what can be done and what can’t be done.

 

I never promised slope to customer slope or grade things to customers because you’re setting yourself up for failure. Because, let me just say this. The home builder consultant is going to ask Jordan this question, kind of overhearing this conversation. Jordan, whenever a customer told us about a piece of land that they had that they wanted to build a home on, how did they describe that piece of land 100% of the time?

 

Flat. Flat every time. Every time, 100% of the time. It’s so flat. When we went out and measured, what was it? Not flat, never flat. Ever. But every customer will tell you it’s flat. Every time we went out to this one in it, literally in Oklahoma, we don’t do basements. A home builder consultant remembers this one who came and they were like, it’s like the flattest piece of land you’ve ever seen.

 

We went out there and we actually could do a walk out basement there. It was like a 14ft drop from the front of the home to the back of the home. It’s flat if you turn your head like this. Yeah. Yep. So I was like, folks, first of all, stop taking hallucinogenic drugs. And secondly, you need a left to take care of this flat, man.

 

Yeah,