Walking Away From Trouble

A while back, a homeowner down the block from a project I was working on asked me to stop by and give him an estimate. He had a big house by city neighborhood standards, about 4,000 square feet, and a detached three-car garage, all brick. The masonry was in great shape—no wash outs, cracks, deteriorating bricks, or crumbling mortar. We walked the perimeter and he pointed out pinholes on the wall from the grade to the top of the elevation that he wanted “touched up.” Throughout my tour he ranted about tradesmen and the lack of pride in their work and revealed that other contractors looked at his house but didn’t come back. Add me to that long list. 

 

I figured I would have spent more time looking for cross joints to tuck point than actually working on the wall. Plus I strongly sensed that no matter how thorough I was, I would never be able to please this guy. I told him I was booked with projects, which I was, and wouldn’t be able to take him on. Sometimes the best projects are the ones you turn down.

 

Every business has its bad-customer anecdotes and custom-home builders have plenty of them. I entered “clients from hell” in an online search just to see what red flags bloggers and other contributors identified regarding buyers that builders should stay away from. There are the warnings about certain personality types, avoiding the nickel-and-dimers, the clients who want something for nothing, and buyers with unrealistic expectations. I even read one entry where a builder urged his readers to avoid the “wimps,” defined as buyers who hold back their true feelings and can’t make a decision. He added that such customers tend to work as accountants, teachers, middle managers, and government workers. 

 

Based on a quarter century of observing customers, Kevin Estes of Estes Builders, in Sequim, Wash., shared during an interview the kind of people he thinks are best suited for dealing with the process of building a custom home and those who are not. He’s considering blogging about it on his company’s website. 

 

“People who are less satisfied and more stressed during a custom home build are the people who waffle, choose something, and then unchoose something,” he says. “There’s definitely a correlation with people who are able to make a decision, be confident with that decision, and move on.”

 

So an important component of Estes’ pre-construction planning is reinforcing his clients’ decisions, building their confidence, and getting them to trust their instincts (click here to read “Building It Like Production,” in the Jan/Feb issue). But for those who waffle, he says, “The best projects are the ones you don’t do because it’s not a good fit.” Unfortunately, too many of us get that kind of wisdom only after having endured the bad ones.