KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Crafting Your Dream Home Exploring the Appeal of New-Build Properties

Episode Date: June 18, 2024

Welcome to All Things Fulingo podcast with the Flamingo Group and myself, Beth Riley. Join us as we discuss all things to do with our community, real estate, and all things, Flamingo. Welcome and tune in for a flocking good time. Well, hello, hello, hello. Thank you so much for being on this podcast. Today we have Louis Sorrell with MI Homes and my partner in life and business, my husband, Dan Burling. Hi, Lewis. How are you? Hey guys, how are you doing? I'm great. Thank you. Thanks for coming on. We really have noticed that there's no inventory. But New Builds always a great opportunity for people. I mean, New Build has its own sexiness, if you would say. And MI Build has a great product.

Thank you. I appreciate it. There's certainly a lack of inventory in the existing market. And I think people are more and more becoming open to new construction. Right. They're actually starting to throw a location out the window because there's nothing to find in the location that they want. So they are moving further out to get a great product. Indeed. Yeah. Well, you know, and everything's relative, right? As urban sprawl continues to happen, you know, we have to go where the land is. So. But I do agree it provides a great opportunity. There used to be, I would say, more of a premium for new construction just because it was new construction. I would argue that a lot of that has went away with the lack of inventory. Prices have went up in the existing market, which is pricing some folks out as well. So I think again, new construction has become a great opportunity. In fact, the prices of new build have been really quite competitive. You know, they have.

And, you know, the thing is you've got a multitude of builders. You've got smaller builders mid-size. and then you've got your large national builders. And most of us are publicly traded companies. So at the end of the day, we have to sell homes in whatever market is presented to us. So, you know, that's what I always say, too, if the market takes a dip and we have to increase incentives, you know, we have to dig in the bag of tricks to sell homes. We're going to sell homes. And that's hard for the average seller to do, you know.

Yeah. What it is, what if you could, you talked a little. bit about where you guys land in the market, what would you consider, what type of build are you compared to, if you could kind of just tell us what the different builds are? Sure. So typically, you'll have a smaller, you know, locally owned, private-owned, what I would call custom builder. It doesn't mean that they're building huge extravagant homes. They're just smaller. They're more open to do whatever the client may want, you know, draw a plan on a napkin, take it to a draftsman, and do a preliminary plan, they're less systematic and more flexible.

And obviously they sell less homes. Then you'll have what I consider at my homes in Minnesota to be, which is a semi-custom builder. We're scaled as a national builder in terms of national contracts, having a little bit more power, if you will, or appeal to vendors and subcontractors, because obviously we can offer them 800 homes a year versus maybe 50 to 100. So we go in and we buy the land on a mass scale.

We provide multiple product lineups. We have our own title company, mortgage company, design center. So we really streamline the process. And then you have your fully national builders. And the difference with a national builder is to me, Obviously, they offer a great product. They have a lot of locations. They accommodate a lot of price points.

But the flip side of that is they're very rigid. You know, if they don't have pricing for whatever that specific client is looking for, they're not going to be willing to make any adjustments to that home. So the fact that they're doing that has really catapulted MI homes to the forefront of the Minnesota market. whether we intended it or not, because, you know, people do want some custom options. And it's not some large, you know, we want to expand the foundation and do an 11-foot ceiling. Sometimes a custom option is just moving a wall. Sometimes it's adding a little wine station, you know, in the kitchen.

It's little things. And when the national builders say no and we're willing to say yes, buyers are more open to buying a home with us. Definitely. And I'll just interject too. There's several reasons why we are seeing buyers come that direction more. And I go to Lewis all the time because he does such a good job of explaining these options. But I think people don't understand about, they're not familiar with these, that these options are available.

And in this competitive market, we, you know, we were representing a buyer this weekend, this last weekend. And there were nine offers in on it. And it escalated. Well, when you go into, you know, MI, for example, you've got this, you know, list of items that you can go ahead and custom. And then you're, you're not going to get, you know, hit out of nowhere on the pricing. And then the other issue that comes up, you know, we'll probably talk about a little bit too, or you can, is, you know, hey, I know I can buy or build, but what about selling my house? And the speed with which that happens.

And, you know, I know you guys do a lot dealing with. with the contingency world too. So, but, but that whole flexibility of, of the type of customization is really, I think, surprising to people, you know, your design build or your design meetings, those can go for several hours. And, you know, that's, that, it can be exhausting, but at the same time, it's very nice because they can go ahead and choose what they want. Yeah.

Yep. I agree, Dan. And, you know, I would say, obviously, I'm a little bit partial because I was grandfathered into new construction. But I have owned a couple of existing homes, and I've built numerous homes of my own. And to me, the overwhelming feeling of building a new home, every home is custom in the sense that you've picked the outside colors. you've picked the outside elevation or aesthetic.

You've picked all of the inside materials and colors. So you're customizing a new construction home unless you buy something that might be what we call a spec or an inventory home. And quite frankly, I love the feeling of walking into a new home and not seeing all the things that I want to do in the future. I don't have to renovate the kitchen. I don't have to finish the basement. And plus those things cost so much money. You know, I have people come in and they talk about renovations they've done finishing the basement. I don't have to throw numbers out there, but oftentimes the cost for us to build it from scratch is half of what you would pay to renovate your house.

And I do agree with you in terms of, and I think that's why this podcast is good. I think with the competitive existing market, more and more people are getting frustrated with having to, you know, submit offers for 10. $20,000 and $50,000 more for a house. As you said, when you come into a model, my first objective is to find out what you're looking for, what sort of price point you're looking to capture, and then sort of reverse engineer you into that, you know, and you're right. There's no bidding war. There's no, you know, you sit down and you craft the house from scratch. You put the upgrades you want in that house and you finalize a price. And I personally find that very, rewarding and I think when you go through your first build, you do as well if you have the right

people supporting you. Yep. I've been through several of the locations. How many did you say you have locations, or am I? You know, I would guess we have 25 or so. I mean, it's grown exponentially over the last. You know, we've been in the market. So just a tiny little backstory about my homes.

So Hans Hagen was a big national, I'm sorry, a local builder in the state of Minnesota for about 50 years with a very good rep. So when MI Homes came in and purchased Hans Hagen in the Twin Cities, that was their entryway into the market. So we're, I think last year, we're roughly around 800 homes. So that's how we kind of entered this market. And we were happy to hold on to that name, hence we have what we call a Hans Hagen Villa collection because the quality of his homes were so good. So that's kind of how we came into this market.

Mm-hmm. Yep. So what is the difference between like model inventory, spec home, spec inventory, things like that, when you go into, let's say, an M&I site to look at different homes? Yeah. So, you know, there's, the first would be obviously a to be built home where we literally sit down. We look at plans. We look at home sites.

We price custom, I don't want to say custom, but pre-priced options in the home and build the home from scratch. Now, as rewarding as it is, sometimes people don't want to wait seven or eight months to occupy their new home. So builders keep what they call either spec or inventory homes in their backlog. So, for example, if you come into my community, I probably have five or six inventory homes at anyone given. time. Now, how that translates in the existing market is if you're out showing people existing homes and they're transferring or they've sold their home and they need to buy something and close on something within 30 to 60 days, then I can show you a new construction home that you can show as well. So most folks are willing to entertain new construction if they don't want to wait

for the entire build process, we can show them and sell them an inventory home. Along that line, too, I think a lot of people, we sell a lot of warranties on pre-owned homes. And there's some really terrific warranties on a new build. If you could kind of let us know how that rolls. Absolutely. So basically, it depends on where you build, but I will say this. Minnesota is a very consumer-friendly state, which is good. They want to make sure the builders have high integrity.

They're held to a high level, and there's warranties in the house. So essentially what you'd hear in new construction, there's what's called a statutory warranty. Every builder is obligated to give a homeowner. Essentially, every builder is paying an insurance premium to the state of Minnesota in case where they were to go out of business. So the state would then come in and take care of these warranties, But generally speaking, you've got a one to 10. So you've got a one year on faulty installation and faulty workmanship.

You've got a two-year warranty on HVAC, heating and air conditioning, plumbing, and heating. And you have a 10-year major structural warranty on all the major structural structurals, say the foundation, the framing, the roof. And then you also have manufacturers warranties on everything installed in that home. And I think that's a really, it's a powerful thing, whether you've bought multiple homes,

whether you're buying your first home, I think we all can relate to putting a big down payment on a house and hearing stories of, you know, the roof went out or the furnace went out, or there was some water in the basement. The last thing you want to do is move into your brand new house or a house and have, issues. So I think that's a big selling point that everything in that house is under warranty.

Right. We usually also do a lot of flags with people that we've worked with when we do new build with them. First of all, to help them get a vision for where they're going and what they're doing and what's the floor plan we've been talking about, right? And so we check everything on that. The other thing we tell them is to always communicate with their builder. So don't wait until the two-year warranty is two weeks away. Start at 18 months. If there, If anything comes up, you start talking to your builder right away. They can't fix something they don't know about. Yeah, I couldn't agree more.

And, you know, that's transformed over time. I've been selling new construction for 25 years. And there was a day when you would close and we would say, okay, keep a notepad next to your nightstand and write down all the issues. And we're going to come back in six months and fix them. And we're going to come back in a year and fix them. Well, most people don't want to be handcuffed into their home for two weeks while subs come in and out. So we've really streamlined that. First off, you have multiple walkthroughs before you close on the home, making sure the home is completely buttoned up.

And then the minute you close, we have basically an online warranty department that you can access. And we tell them, use it aggressively. Don't wait. Get these items taken care of as soon as you can. And then we're going to come back four months post-closing. And we're going to walk through and look for nail pops. drywall cracks, dings, dent, scratches, cock fixes, you know, route fixes, and we're going to button that up. And then we'll come back 11 months later and do a drywall certificate.

We're fixing those final nail pops and drywall cracks. And you're right again, Beth, I tell everybody use it aggressively because what happens oftentimes is we get so busy, we forget about things. And then all of a sudden we call the builder back in a year and a half. I go, hey, I never told you about the cock that was coming, you know, that was separating. my countertop was separating from the wall. Well, at that point, you're looking for the builder to do you a favor. And if they're not feeling like doing you a favor, they'll say, well, the warranty is up. So it's one of those deals where use it as much as you can.

You know, I just, I built a new home and closed last April. And I would, I guarantee you I've had, you know, 12, 15 trips from different vendors to do final tweaks. But now we're there. We're not quite at the one year, but we're there now. Yeah, it's all about communication. And, you know, my experience with MI has been very good because there are multiple meetings going on. We've got one right now out in the Wauconia community. And they've had their design meeting.

Now we're going to meet the pre-build meeting. And, I mean, there's a whole layout of the different options, the different meetings that go on. And again, you know, you've got to, it's like what we talk about too. You've got to communicate, communicate. And it falls on all parties just to keep this thing going. But my experience with MI has been very positive in that respect. Good to hear, Dan. Yep, yeah.

So as we were looking, some of the key players' new construction process, it's all pretty much the same on our side of the fence. As far as there is, you have a buyer, you're the builder, you're the seller. Some of the other things that makes it different, and we've already touched on the warranty, but would you be considered the, who's the project manager? Is that another separate person? It is. So generally speaking, you're going to have a new home consultant, which is me. My job is to meet clients at the model home, figure out what they're trying to do, show them how to make it possible. And so I'm going to sit down and I'm going to help you pick a home site.

I'm going to help you pick a plan. I'm going to price in options and essentially write the contract. And then at some point, after you've met with the design center, and we've done a low voltage electrical appointment, so you can wire the house the way you want to. We're going to introduce you to the job supervisor or the project manager, if you will, and you're going to sit down with him at the model home. You're going to look at the plan.

You're going to look at all of your design center selections. you're going to look at your electrical schematic, your survey. He's going to talk about the build process. He's going to talk about the different appointments you're going to have and obviously answer any questions you have as it relates to building the home. And then we're going to break ground. And although I'm the point for the build process, he is the person who's responsible for building your house.

He's going to meet you for a pre-drywall appointment before the, after the wiring's been done before the drywall gets slapped up, he's going to meet you for a new home orientation about two weeks before you close where he's going to have a big roll of painters tape. And again, you're going to look for the dings, dense scratches and all that. He's going to fix those items. You're going to meet him again for the day of closing walkthrough. So there's the new home counselor and then there's the, you know, construction. construction manager or project manager who actually builds the home. Yeah, that's a very process.

The thing that I think, and excuse me, Dan, I know you're about to talk, the thing that I noticed that is interesting getting people to the new build is that we do go through a process of talking about, do you want land, do you want this pre-owned home, do you want this neighborhood? We go through a lot before we get many times to where you are. And then there's always the guys that are looky-lose, they walk in and they want to buy, and we just spent six weeks with them looking at everything that they said they wanted. So I think that it's also something that might be, it's coming to the forefront of a lot of our sales cycles with people is to say, well, let's check this out.

And then now let's go look at some pre-owned. Yeah, it's interesting because we'll say that, you know, have you considered that? And we've had a couple where the first comment is like, no, no, no, we want existing, we want this. And then we had this one couple came to us and said, hey, we have an idea. We'd like to look at new construction. And we had brought it up a month prior. And we were like, well, that's a good idea. Let's do that.

Yeah. We're some going to a builder now, especially with the high interest rates. Yeah. What's going on at that? Yeah, it is interesting. But again, we have to sell homes. So whether it's high interest rate, rates, saturation in the market, which that isn't the case now. We have to sell home. So,

you know, it's what a national, for example, I'll give you an example right now. So if you come in and purchase one of my prestige collection, full size two stories, I'm able to give you $20,000 in what we call flex dollars. So if you want to take $20,000 off the final sale price, if you want to use that money for financing, it's flex dollars. I also offer a $10,000 in closing costs if you secure a mortgage with our lender. And then lastly, I'm able to give you $5,000 off of lot premiums. So when you think about that, you're talking about a pool of $35,000 and to address the interest rate issue. So why would I use that money, Lewis, for financing? Well, it's talk about it. So if the rate is 7%, and I'm able to show you how to take the 10,000 in closing

costs, take some of that flex money, and you can do what's called pay points where you're paying basically 1% of the mortgage amount to buy the interest rate down. So most people don't understand this, but when I show them, listen, we can take 20,000 off the price and you can save $75 a month or we can take that 20, roll it with the 10, and I can buy the interest rate from 7% to 6% and also pay your closing costs and save you $250, $375 a month. It's powerful. Otherwise, you'd have to pay for that if you're buying an existing home. You'd be forking up that money to buy the rate down. And essentially, we're doing it. We're paying for it. So it's a powerful narrative. I mean, you know, especially in a high interest rate market.

Yep, it really answers a lot. One thing, just to go back to just real quickly, on your first meeting with people, that new home consultant role, give folks an idea of how long that takes. I think, you know, when somebody comes in and does that, you know, and kind of the breadth of what you're doing in that first meeting. Yep. So if they've never seen the community and really never have visited our work, website. At that point, it's really about trying to figure out what they're looking for and also, let's be honest, what they can afford. All right? So not not everybody has done this as long as I have and I feel fortunate that I have. So if I have somebody come in and they're looking at the

most expensive house, but nobody's broke out a payment for them, see, then I just go right to payment. say what are you comfortable paying a month right and i can break a payment out for them and that house might be the one or it might not be so we're really trying to drill down to figure out what they're comfortable with as far as payment wise so i can actually show them a house that works or some houses that work so basically we're looking for that we're looking for a floor plan we're looking for a home site that works and that's the initial uh meeting now If they've looked at the website, they've seen a couple of our homes,

they know they like to meet the community, and they come in and say, listen, Lewis, I wanna price out the Victoria on lot number 105. So that's when I actually sit them down and we pick the plan, we pick the home site, and I systematically go through everything that's incorporated into a house. So we'll look at structural options.

What sort of bathroom do you, owner's bathroom do you want? Do you want a soaking tub with a separate shower. Do you want a three by six tub set in a deck with a separate shower? Do you want a huge walk-in shower, you know, and we'll do that with the kitchen. You know, do you want a standard kitchen layout, i.e. a freestanding range oven, microwave dishwasher, refrigerator. Do you want something more extravagant? Do you want a double oven with a gas or electric cooktop, stainless steel direct vent, you know, and really customize the home, fireplace, railing, decks,

finished basements and really drill down and craft the house from scratch. And that that's about, what do you think, an hour, hour and a half? You know, if the technology's working right, yeah, you know, we can get them in there, you know, and it also depends on the size of the home. If someone's coming into price out what we call our slab on grade carriage homes, which are a little smaller, I can typically zip through that within 45 minutes to an hour. Someone's coming in to buy a full size two story with a finished basement in a morning room in the deck and a wet bar, you know, maybe maybe a couple.

hours. But the goal there for me is to drill down, ask all the right questions, so the buyer can reconcile price at that meeting. Because what we don't want to have happen is for them to go to the design center and have a $20,000 surprise. That's a really difficult way to start a relationship. So I always say thank you for very with me, but the only way I know how to do this is to be thorough. So when you leave here today with a pricing document, you're going to know the prices on everything you want. You can go home and plus minus at your leisure and really craft the final price that you want. That's what I've seen happen is people will go home and they've got a good understanding of it and they'll, you know, plus minus, like you said, they'll come back and they've got

a better handle on it than anybody by the time they show up at the next meeting. They do. And you know what the builders have become really good at giving go tools i mean i would welcome anyone to visit the my home's website i mean when you visit the valley crest website you can look at every plan you can look at the front elevation or front aesthetics for every plan you can look at the available home sites um you can modify the plan if you want to finish a basement if you want to add a morning room if you want to customize the kitchen. You can look at our design center link and find out what standard countertops are included and what the upgrades are. I've literally had people come in with a printout. Here's the exact plan we want. Here's the lot we want. Here's the elevation we

want. Here's the upgrades we want. I love that. Yeah. That can really get it right. Yeah, that's when you know they've really done their homework. And ultimately they know their numbers too. They do. And again, that's, you know, a lot of our jobs these days are, well, there's no gatekeepers anymore. There's such a free flow of information that clients are able to go out there and look at all the different options. I think it's wonderful. It's empowering them to make the right decision.

Yep. Yep. Okay. So the design center really, it works with this as the center milestones. You're also working with the outside, the inside, the bathrooms and kitchens. That seems to be your biggest kind of focal point when you're designing. It is. And as I said, you know, there's a multitude of ways to do this, but I really try and drill down.

We've got our wonderful website, which has a link called Envision, which shows you all of, so if somebody comes in and picks a plan, they write a deal, we send them a link where they can look at every countertop cabinet flooring option and they can and it has prices as well. So we encourage them to play around with that before they go to the design center, even if it's just to pick somewhat of a color palette. So when you go into the design center, they're not flying blind. And again, you're crafting this house from scratch. So it can be overwhelming, but we have incredible designers who will walk you through. They're not afraid to give you their opinion.

If they think you're going to pick some colors that aren't going to work too well, they'll let you know. But at the end of the day, Beth, they make all the selections. They kind of tidy them in a nice little frame, take a picture of it. And I think it's very rewarding. I've done it multiple times. But yeah, it can be a little bit stressful. But with the right designer, a design professional, it's rewarding.

Yeah, well, I would have like decision fatigue in six, seven minutes. I'd be like, I'm done. You picked that out, you know. It's not a gazillion. It's like five choices or, you know, it's not too much. It does happen. And oftentimes, you know, our policy is, you know, you have five days to go decompress and think about your decisions before you make a final decision.

If you're in between your two different cabinet colors or, you know, countertops, we welcome me to go back out to the model, take another look. And most people take advantage of that as well. And that also, does that all take place pretty much in the buyer conference? You know, so you'll have the design center appointment. You'll have the low voltage electrical appointment, and then we move to the buyer conference. The buyer conference is really just a confirmation meeting. Really nothing new should be discovered there. It's a confirmation of this is the house we're building on the lot. Here's all of the structural options, design center options, electrical options,

you know, just basically a confirmation meeting before we dig a hole. Okay. And then when does the pre-sheet rocking meeting come in? Yep. So after the bioconference, we'll dig a hole, pour the foundation, frame the house, put the roof on, the windows in, rough in the electrical, HVAC and plumbing. And that's when the pre-sheet rock happens. We'll welcome the buyer to come out.

Oftentimes that too is just a, it's not a discovery meeting. It's just a confirmation meeting. If you really haven't added many low voltage options, it's kind of a formality. But if you're kind of a music junkie like I am and you've added 15 speakers in the house, you want to make sure they're in the right locations. You want to make sure all the wiring is run into the right place. You want to make sure all the LED packages are roughed in. And so we welcome the buyer to come do that.

before we slap the drywall up because as you said before dan if if if you don't recognize the problem and it's you know before it gets constructed then it's too late did you really put in 15 speakers you know quite frankly i might have more than that i didn't know you did that and the only thing i think i said is i regret not putting more in but oh there you go it's it's yours it's custom that's right well you know like i said again what what is you what is your kink what is what's important to you. You know, and to me, my fiance and I love to entertain. We are both music junkies. The first thing we do when we wake up is put music on. And now with technology, you don't have to have bulky speakers sitting on the floor. And, you know, people come in and they go, where is all that

music coming from? We, we roughen speakers right in the ceiling. You can't even see it. You know, so, yeah, I'm guilty. I did do that. Well, that's good, though. I mean, again, that's one of those things where I don't think people realize, oh, I can do that. It's not a cookie cutter. Correct. Absolutely. Not crack housing. Absolutely. Yep. So then they, of course, usually I always think appreciate rocking as electrical. So yeah, when you explain that with the speakers, I tend to agree. Also, people that have,

they have a hobby room of any sort. Many times that also has its own lighting, electrical, things like that. What about, are you putting in regularly? EV chargers or I know all the houses are at 200 amp is that correct? Yep, 200 app service. More and more, we certainly offer an EV pre-wire. More and more you see people doing that. Yeah. I kind of think it would be, for me, I would always push everybody to do it just because of what's going on.

It seems to be going that direction. And it's certainly going to be, again, more cost effective to do it up front. than to do it later and especially depending on where your electrical box is if the electrical box is in the garage it wouldn't be as difficult if your electrical box is in the basement now it can really be you know a big a big project so i would agree put it in there and where does the new home orientation come in yep so once the home is considered finished in the eyes of the job supervisor he's going to welcome you to come out and do a new home orientation.

Again, he's going to have the big roll of blue tape. He's going to walk you through that home. You're looking for nail pops, drywall cracks, dings, dense, scratches. You're looking for trim issues, anything that doesn't seem right. He's also going to do what's called the home maintenance checklist where he's going to teach you how to use your furnace, when to change the filter, your air to air exchanger, when to change. to that filter. If you've added a humidifier, understanding how to use your humidifier, and all of the technology in the house. So all of those items will be buttoned up or identified in that new home orientation. And there's also communication along the way. I mean, like when the like this one

that I'm talking about in Waconia, we were notified that this pre-billed meeting is coming. And I mean, there's like a constant communication from what my experience has been anyway that you guys are constantly like here's what's next you know here's here's what it looks like and of course most people have been out to the site many times anyway on their own with their own pictures but yeah the communication again is the big piece well i'm glad you segmented segue to that dan we have what we call the buyer portal i think it's absolutely ingenious every homeowner will receive a customized buyer portal that they can log into any time. They can find all the executed, signed paperwork. The builder comes out and takes professional pictures through the build process

that they can access. They can access warranty claims there. There's a checklist that systematically tells you. It'll give you a pop-up. Okay, your second earnest money payment is due. Your buyer conference appointment is coming up. And it's, yeah, it's, it's community, even without verbal communication, somebody can follow along and know exactly where they are. You know, once you get towards the end of the process, have you secured your homeowner's insurance? You know, all these types. And then after we close, you can access the warranty department there. So it really is, that's one of the things that the national builders have really done so well.

I think one of the things that, you know, one of the apprehensive, some people are apprehensive about building new construction because they just don't understand it. It seems overwhelming. They hear a story about we signed for a price and then all of a sudden three months later, there was a $30,000 surprise that we didn't anticipate. That does not happen in new construction. You will have a, you will have a purchase price. You will go to the design center and make selections, have a final price there. And if you make any election, electrical and low voltage selections, you know, you know exactly where you are price-wise. Yeah. And financial, I mean, Beth and I deal with this all time. You just don't want financial surprises. And if you could drill down just a little bit on detail on this one, the, you know, we'll have people that have come in maybe with a lender that they've already worked with, and then they look at your lender. And one of the pros to, you know, we talked about the interest rates and the buy down and everything. But could you talk a little bit about escrow, especially if something is being built, you know, built up during the wintertime and then you've got in the spring, maybe you've got some sod and some things going in, how that whole escrow thing works and avoiding a surprise?

Yeah. So, you know, when you're building a new construction home, years ago, you would have a separate lender, would have a separate title company, the builders on their own island. And let's be honest, you know, it not everybody's on the same page. So what the National Builders have discovered and we're, you know, in conjunction with this is we have our own mortgage company, we have our own title company, the design center, the division office, everything is consolidated. Not only do we give you incentive to use our lender. It allows everybody to be on the same page. And as you spoke about escrow, so if you close on your home after the weather has turned and there's crossed in the ground, obviously there's certain things we can't install. You know, irrigation, landscaping, sod, driveways, sidewalks. And using MI Finance, the builder and my finance have

come into agreement to not charge the builder, the client, an escrow. So what is an escrow? You know, if all of those items have not been completed before the closing, a lender typically will say, oh, well, I need to know what the cost of all of those items are. And I'm going to require the buyer to pony up one to one and a half percent of what those costs are and put it in an escrow account. And once the builder comes back in spring to install all those unfinished items, then they can chase me around and try and get their escrow money back. We just avoid all of that.

Yep. And especially with Minnesota. I mean, you've got so much going. on, I suppose it gets into the fall when you're building in the fall is when this thing turns. It is, and it's all weather related. I've seen so. I get installed as late as, you know, sometime in November. I've seen the weather turn in early October, late September.

You know, and that's one of the other things is, you know, being with somebody who's going to communicate with you fully too, because at the end of the day, that is another unpleasant surprise at closing when somebody says you have to pony up $15,000 for the unfinished escrow work. Mm-hmm. Yep. That's exactly why I bring it up because those are the things that you just, you can't afford to do. On the fun side, though, you do have some spec homes that are ready to go. So if we do have people, which they'll be contacting us to get to you. But if you have people or you do have spec homes, what do you have right now for inventory? I saw one yesterday.

Talk a little bit about that. Yeah. Currently, I have a full-size-two-story with an unfinished lookout basement, a three-car garage stall, nicely equipped, completely finished. And we have it listed at $625,000. Again, that is a four-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath, three-car garage home. And then I have others that are under construction. As you guys know, the markets are competitive right now. So it has been a challenge. for us to hold on to inventory homes. But currently that's the only one I have in Valley Crest. That's completely finished.

Do you have any slab on grades? I do. I have what we call a slab on grade carriage two-story product, which is really a price point play, because prices have ran away from the last few years. So it's an opportunity for a client to come in and get a, you know, four bedroom, two and a half bath, two-car garage, stall, single-family house in the low,

house in the low 400s. Wow. Yeah, it really is challenging. That used to be what we call a split level home, you know, but now we've created the two-story. So, yeah, I do have that product lineup as well. The one I liked on the two-story that I saw yesterday was just for anybody who's interested in buying is it had the four bedrooms on the same floor.

Yep. That was kind of a drawing point for this family. They liked having everybody on the same floor, and then they probably will finish. off the basement, which it was not finished on that one, to put another bedroom in our or an office. Yeah. And the killer for Beth, Lewis, is that sunroom. Oh.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I'll tell you, it's, like I said, my fiance and I built, and we absolutely love our sunroom. It's our, we've got some oversized plants in there, and it's one of the first places we head to in the morning, grab some coffee, sit in the morning room, enjoy that weather, especially in Minnesota where, you know, half the year, you don't have that weather. So at least to sit in there and enjoy that sun beaming down on you is wonderful. Yeah, no kidding, no kidding. Hey, one more thing I

want to bring up as I think about this last one. Could you go briefly into association versus non-association home? Yeah. Because I think, I think sometimes people think, okay, I'm going to move into a community and it's going to be this. And I know there's some options. Yeah. So every MI community is a little bit different. So we offer a single family non-association maintained product where obviously the client is cutting their own grass, plowing their own snow, doing all of that. We also offer what we call a Hans Hagen Villa product. That can either be a slab on grade meaning no basement, zero threshold meaning no steps, association maintained home. So all of your living space is on the main level.

We're cutting the grass. We're plowing the snow. We're installing and maintaining an irrigation system. And it allows people to still have autonomy. If they're not in town that much, they travel all over or whatnot. Or they just don't want to do that work anymore. You know, so you can build a full-size rambler with a basement or a slab on grade. what we call villa, and it's fully association maintained.

Same exact house you would build in the single family section. Yep. And I know the couple that really was focusing on the non-association that I'm dealing with, their interest was we don't want to have any kind of restriction necessarily on a garden size or less restrictions on a garden size. And that's important when people are downsizing. I think you don't know if they've been outdoors folks and that kind of thing. They've got an option.

Yeah, exactly. you know and obviously you know when you have an HOA and they're coming through once a week to cut the grass and things like that you're a little bit more restricted you know they want they don't want a fence to deal with negotiate they don't want to have to have you open your garage to so they can have access to the irrigation control panel and so that that might lead you to towards more of a single family home but for those who, you know, don't mind not doing that work, that that villa product is one of our most popular products. Nice.

Very nice. I bet. It's hitting a certain demographic. It really is. And that's, like I said, it's, you know, it's funny because Hans Hagan really kind of customized that plan. He kind of created that plan from scratch. And now that you have the baby boomers retiring, it is, it is very, very popular.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Excellent. Well, thank you so much. This has been very informative. Is there anything else that we've forgotten or you'd like to add on? No, I just appreciate you guys bringing it up. You know, as you know, Dan and Beth, we've done some deals together.

You guys are as thorough as it gets. I, you know, when I give a referral, I take it personally because I want people to be treated the same way I treat my clients. my clients and I have no problem referring you guys. You're very thorough. So obviously highly recommended. Anybody who's looking for new construction, you know, reach out to Dan and Beth. They can get in contact with me. And we will certainly take great care of you. Thank you. The other thing we have to offer is we do have a guide. So you saw some of what we put up for the deck. We also have a guide for you. So if you're interested in learning more about new build and you'd like to just go through the process.

We have a printed piece of material or a PDF. So contact us. I believe we're going to have a link below, and we'd be glad to get you the guide. So we'd just need your email. Thank you so much, Lewis. My pleasure, guys. Anytime.

Thanks for having me. I can't wait to hear some of the music out there. We'll have to have you over. I just invited ourselves over, Beth. All right. Thanks again. If you're interested in working with the Flamingo Group, again, you know how to reach us.

We're always there for you. We'd love to help you with any kind of new build. Lewis has been a terrific partner, and we'd like to go further and see maybe if we can sell that villa. So not the villa, actually, it was the two-story. All right. Thanks.