COVID-19 and construction series: Southwest U.S. region

Paul Wurth:

You are listening to “The Building Code,” a podcast by Buildertrend where we talk all things technology and construction. Be sure to stick around to the end of the episode, where you can find out how to be a part of The Building Code crew. Let’s get it.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to The Building Code. I’m very happy to announce that this episode kicks off something we’ve been working on for quite a while. Shout out producer, Danielle, for coordinating all this. We had an idea as we were closing out 2020 to do sort of a recap. Obviously, it was a big year for everybody. We had a once in a lifetime pandemic hit us in March and it affected our business in many, many different ways, but not all the same. And so knowing that we have clients of Buildertrend all over the world, we wanted to get a taste for how COVID-19 affected different businesses in different areas.

So, we are launching a regional series here of podcasts. Over the next coming weeks, you’re going to hear from all corners of America, Canada, even international, and we’re going to talk to business owners and employees of companies, and just hear their story of COVID-19. We’re going to look back, but we’re also going to look forward. What are we looking forward to? What are some positive changes that have happened for our business due to the regulations that came down from COVID-19?

So, here’s our first episode we have Don from Don Wise Construction. He is out of both Oklahoma and Arkansas, and he’s coming to us from his truck, very on-brand for contractors. Don, why don’t you start us off by hearing a little bit more about your company and what it was like for you when COVID-19 first hit.

Don Wise:

We were more of a custom home builder, I would say, and did a little bit of renovation stuff, and we would do four or five specs a year. And we had kind of just started building these neighborhoods in Arkansas and really went into the spec business, we had several that are in the 260 range then we would get up into some that were $500,000 houses. So right, when COVID-19 hits and they shut everybody down and everybody went into quarantine, we’ve got six houses sitting. And the next thing I know is like, nobody’s coming around, seeing houses, nobody’s doing anything. That was kind of one of the scary things for us, I think, is that we really didn’t know what was going to happen or what was going to go on.

And it went on for probably a month or so. And then even some of our financing people that we dealt with call hey, don’t do anything, shut everything down, let’s just see what’s going to happen. But after we got past that, man, I mean, we’ve been busier than we’ve ever been. I think the biggest challenges that we run into is supply I mean the supply chain, how much it’s changed.

I would say we’ve been fortunate that we have had only two people in our whole organization that’s actually had COVID-19 or that it was tested and it’s been out. But I mean, we change things, there are mass mandates here and this part of where we’re at. We haven’t really done a lot of social distancing, I wouldn’t say as far as like the things go on the houses. We kind of separate some contractors out and stuff like that, though everybody’s wearing masks and then we provide sanitizer and things like that and I think that’s the processes that we’ve changed. In the big picture of things, oh man, last year was probably one of the best years we ever had once we got past that. I mean, we ran more volume and made more money than we’ve ever made. I mean, are one of the top.

Paul Wurth:

That’s great, so it’s a challenge because you’re based in Oklahoma, but you do work in Oklahoma and Arkansas. I guess take a step back, so how long have you guys been in business? Just kind of give the listeners a profile of your business.

Don Wise:

We’re a family-owned business. We’ve been around over probably about 35 years now in total, the business was started by my father, just started off building spec houses and things like that. We kind of had a background in the floor covering business as well before we got into the construction business. And then I came back 12 years ago, right about. I was in the telecom business. So, I went and I worked for like Sprint and AT&T and people like that, I decided I wasn’t going to be in business for myself. Really. It’s kind of what I thought I grew up around it, and I was going to go out and work for somebody else and take life easy, but figuring I really wouldn’t like that. So, I ended up coming back to this part of Oklahoma and took the company over right at about 12 years ago and just kind of started trying to progressively kind of change things like with Buildertrend and things like that. My dad is not a computer guy by no means.

And so, we’ve kind of had them, we’ve had a lot of the same subcontractors whether they’ve changed generational wise, so we’ve got a lot of the same guys. I would say most guys that worked for us have been with us at least 10 years or better, so it’s kind of been a really good partnership.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, so you spent some time in the telecom, let’s just say corporate world, did you bring any things you learned in that world to your building business 12 years ago when you got involved?

Don Wise:

Yeah, I think that’s kind of where I came in and what I brought back from the corporate world, a lot of processes, and that’s something I was looking for the whole time when we got into Buildertrend is trying to figure out the best way to track what kind of costs we had going into these houses, what kind of labor costs, material costs, time that it was taken to build these projects too and just all the functions that go into that. The next things that we did in the corporate world, we tracked everything, we wanted to know. I mean, they would keep up on paper ledger or whatever in the past before. And we went through several different type things from Excel spreadsheets, ourselves to another company before Buildertrend.

I think that’s kind of the stuff that I was looking to bring back into the company that I had learned from the corporate world. We got some old school guys here too, they don’t want an iPhone even, so they sure don’t want to look up anything on a computer, want to know where the plans and all that’s at. For the most part, it’s went really well and it’s been well received by our vendors and our subcontractors.

Paul Wurth:

That’s great. And so when you got into the business, I’m just curious of this, did you have to add roles, you think? Did you sort of create a role for the accounting or a project manager a super, was that already sort of there, this corporate structure?

Don Wise:

My mother did all the accounting stuff, and my dad did all the rest, so we did create a few roles as far as that goes. And then we even brought into the thing. We’re all in the real estate business or in construction, and my wife’s an appraiser, too, as well. And then she’s actually a licensed decorator, so we’ve kind of brought all those aspects back into the business that wasn’t being done before. So, we started providing some interior type, design type stuff and helping people pick colors with the custom stuff that we were doing and things like that.

We’ve got an accounting role and we’re still … I would say a small company compared to some of the bigger ones, but we have somebody that handles the accounting side of things and then maybe somebody that handles all the materials coming in and out. And then I kind of ended up overseeing the majority of all that. That’s kind of the roles that we have now. And then we have one person that does nothing but our social media too, which we found to be a very big deal, I even probably resisted that for quite a while and found out that we actually get more, we don’t do any traditional advertising at all anymore. It’s all either social media, word of mouth or past customers.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, there’s definitely a trend in construction going that way. It’s a free vehicle, but you still got to spend time and money on the people to actually drive it. But that being said, it’s an effective way to market these days. That makes a lot of sense. So, I know you had mentioned when COVID-19 hit last March 2020 some of the issues you had, the spec homes you had, there was just some regulations around people just not being able to go in there and view them. Did you guys turn to anything virtually or through your social media to help solve that?

Don Wise:

We went into some stuff with a 360 camera and actually did some virtual tours and stuff like that that. Me and another contractor in town they’d kind of talked about it. And so we started doing just virtual tours of the houses so people could see them. And we started spreading that around on our social media, and we kind of both worked together, we were both building in the same neighborhood, so that’s kind of the avenue we took for probably three months. And it had a lot of actual success with it, and people seem to really relate real well with it. And it’s something that we’ve kind of hung on to. And we actually have probably progressed more into doing video and stuff on a lot of these projects that we never did before.

We did a lot of pictures, things like that, but now we’ve even added our social media. We do a thing called Tuesday tour, and we’ll go have either a cell phone or a GoPro camera or whatever. And we’ll tour either multiple projects one day, and it’s actually live on Facebook. We did just a live Facebook feed. And so, you get all the wrong crap that whatever’s happening on the job, they get it, we don’t edit any of it. And we’ve had a huge kind of following from that and picked up a ton of business, too. It’s been really good.

Paul Wurth:

Great idea. That’s a good little takeaway from people who are listening a little Tuesday tour, just something weekly that people can depend on. This podcast comes out every Thursday, and people sort of catch wind of that. They get in the habit of watching that stuff. So, I got to believe when everybody’s sheltering in place in that mid-March, early April, they’re looking for stuff to watch. And so, you provided them some virtual tours was probably a good idea.

Don Wise:

Yeah, and it seemed to really catch on it. It was one of those deals that you can kind of see when people are watching the live, but we didn’t know really what was going on or whatever, but then we skipped to Tuesday and then we had all kinds of feedback about, hey, you guys are not going to keep doing the Tuesday tour. We’ve kind of stuck with it ever since it’s been a really good deal.

Paul Wurth:

Man, it sounds like for all in all, beyond the first couple of months of just sort of that everybody paused and didn’t know what to do. And there was a lot of regulations that were coming out as fast of what you could and couldn’t do, after that it kind of blew up. And what do you attribute that to, is that your local area, a lack of inventory out there or interest rates or a combination of everything?

Don Wise:

Because the lumber increase was another big thing that hit us. I mean, it went to over $1,200 a board foot, and we had some projects in the middle of things that we definitely didn’t have that budget. I mean, we have one project, we spent another $19,000 just on framing material. So, that’s $19,000 out of the budget, that’s huge. So, that kind of part was weird. We had with several financial institutions calling, hey, man, you’re going to keep building, I mean, lumber’s going up. I mean, that’s what we do for a living, so I think we have no choice but to keep building. But when interest rates went really cheap, I think that’s what’s driving the train now in this area that so many people. As soon as we start a house, we don’t even have it on the MLS, and we’ve got people coming up wanting to make an offer.

And it’s a crazy little deal, there’s an area Fort Smith, Ark., they call it Chaffee. It’s an old military base, and they’ve kind of revamped it, and they’ve got some industrial, and they’ve got food and beverage places and then housing additions all in this thing. And it’s just a hot little area that’s kind of blown up with some really good infrastructure from the city and some forward thinking from a group when they were going to do that. And then with these interest rates, I don’t know how long it’s going to last, then I hope they don’t change. I’ve been reading things that maybe we can ride this thing for at least two years the way it’s going, but it’s so far so good, man.

Like I said, the biggest challenges we have is window suppliers and maybe our appliances and some of the normal things that you got to order way in advance. Before, when we would in, our process before, as far as trying to get that stuff. But that’s kind of been the challenges that came out and a lot of that’s COVID-19 related. Like the place we buy windows from, they will have 30 people out a week, whether they’ve had some kind of contact with it, whether they’ve had it. So, it’s really messing up their production schedule, and we’re dealing with that on the backend.

Paul Wurth:

And do your contacts at these suppliers and vendors say that there’s light at the end of the tunnel where we’re going to get some normalcy back to the lead times at all or do they not know yet?

Don Wise:

I don’t think that they know a 100%. I think a lot of them were hopeful with the vaccine and type stuff like that coming out that it’s going to work, but I mean, most of the guys we dealt with, I don’t think they really know yet how that’s going to look. And a lot of them have changed the way they do business, too. I mean, with all this going on.

Paul Wurth:

What do you mean by that, more electronic documents or virtual meetings, that kind of stuff?

Don Wise:

Yeah, a lot more virtual stuff than we’ve ever seen before, which is kind of a funny thing and it works out great with Buildertrend because we get a lot more guys now wanting access to our electronic plan. So, they’re taking that stuff off the jobs and they’re not sure, so they’re only sending one guy out, basically, and all he’s doing is maybe doing the deliveries and stuff like that. So, there’s a lot more virtual stuff that we’ve seen going on with guys that we would see on job sites all the time in the past, which to me, works out great, man, because I can cover a lot more basis that people are willing to jump more on Buildertrend because we do all our scheduling on there, we deal with 90% of our vendors through Buildertrend now. We have it synced to QuickBooks and all that, so all our invoices, everything runs through there.

That was a real growing process, I would say. I mean, really when we first got to Buildertrend, our first thing about it was doing daily logs for jobs and just kind of keeping up with little things like that. And then we kind of rolled into the schedule part of stuff. But other than that, man, we didn’t do what Buildertrend was capable of, until I ended up going to the class one time and then that’s when things really changed a lot.

Paul Wurth:

You came up to Omaha for Buildertrend University?

Don Wise:

Actually, I went to Buildertrend University in Dallas, on the roadshow that you guys had that time. And it was great, man. And I do want to come to Omaha at some point, too. Just from the classes of learning, but also all the people that were there that do the same thing and kind of figuring out how they use Buildertrend, too. And the little quirks and little things that they find. I mean, it was very good for us.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, the collaboration between the contractors that come and the different groups every month they sort of stay together and communicate, it’s almost like its own little community, so that’s great. We’ll be sure to let when we open things back up, we’re still kind of in that planning for 2021, but I’m sure it’s sometime next year. Well, it sounds like, all in all, there’s been some positive things that have happened for you and your business. And as you look to 2021 there’s a demand there, are there things that you guys are getting ahead of whether it’s buying land or doing anything just to make sure you can fill that demand.

Don Wise:

Man, that’s the thing that we’ve done is that we really jumped on a thing and like our floor dealers we’ve went out and bought as much land as we could put into our budget and buying a couple of these projects that were already going and then we bought some undeveloped stuff, but we bought into a couple of neighborhoods and we probably went from where we were going to do 10 houses that we’ve already committed to 30 lots in a neighborhood that we probably wouldn’t have done in the past. But just because of the way the market is now, we’re willing to gamble on that and get all we can get while it’s here, man.

Paul Wurth:

That’s great. Well, man, we obviously wish you the best and really your time give us a recap of you and your region and sort of what your experience was. Overall, positive things in 2021, 2022, maybe 2023, as you said.

Don Wise:

Absolutely.

Paul Wurth:

Let’s keep this thing rolling. So man, we’ll check in on you in six to 12 months, we’ll see that things are going.

Don Wise:

Okay, all right, man. I appreciate you guys, thanks a lot.

Paul Wurth:

Appreciate you.

Don Wise:

Have a good one.

Paul Wurth:

All right, that was a great conversation with Don. Thank you very, very much again. Next up, we’ve got Mike from Arista Development. Mike, welcome to the podcast.

Mike Fraembs:

Good to be here, Paul.

Paul Wurth:

Thanks for joining us. Obviously, this is a series about the last 10 months. And more importantly, we know that every single region and state has their own experience with this once in a lifetime pandemic last March. And so, we definitely want to focus on that and hear your story and your company story. But first, as always, let’s just hear about your company. Can you just give me the rundown of who you are and what you do?

Mike Fraembs:

Absolutely, once again, my name is Michael Fraembs with Arista Development. We’re a semi-custom and custom home builder down here in Las Cruces, New Mexico, which is the Southern part of N.M. And we primarily build, I would say, maybe around 30, 35 homes a year, ranging anywhere from mid 200s all the way up to a million plus just kind of depending on exactly what we do. We primarily focus on more of the semi-custom realm and we do get involved with a couple true customs throughout the year as well too.

Paul Wurth:

Great, and so how long have you guys been in business down there?

Mike Fraembs:

So, I opened up Arista Development, it’s been a little over six years now. So, we’ve had Arista going a little over six years. Myself, I’ve been in construction since I was a little kid. Grew up around some of the neighbors they were builders. So, I had a broom in my hand, sweeping and cleaning up job sites and just always kind of had it in my blood and ended up, after graduating high school, went to Arizona State University and went through their construction engineering program, which was more kind of cut more towards the commercial builder, project engineering, things of that nature.

After I graduated, I signed on with a pretty big commercial builder McCarthy Building Companies and worked with them for several years. And always had it in my blood to kind of run my own business. And self-employed has always been big in our family and breaking into the commercial background of a building is a little bit harder just due to all the bonding and everything you have to get. And never thought I’d actually moved back down to Las Cruces, but came back down here and started working with another custom home builder for a while until I eventually branched out and started up Arista.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, that’s interesting. I’m always about people making the leap on their own. Did you and somebody else or a couple of different people gather the capital or the things you needed just to start your own thing or how’d that come about?

Mike Fraembs:

Yeah, absolutely. It definitely goes in phases, I would say. A good quote I like to say is, you work for somebody else kind of learn the ropes, and you get the boat close to the dock before you jumped in the ocean, so you have an idea of what you’re doing. But it is a pretty big jump once you fully leave employment with somebody else and go out on your own, so it is a bit nerve wracking, but once you do that, I don’t think I could ever go back.

Paul Wurth:

That’s great, good for you. So, you guys started about six years ago. How many employees do you have now outside the ownership?

Mike Fraembs:

So, we have about six to seven employees. Primarily, we are a project management company so, we do a design build process. So, we design our own homes, estimate it and build it for our clients. So, our employee staff, we keep ourselves pretty small so we could be kind of limber and move with the current economy and everything. And then we have subcontractors that we work with primarily on a constant basis. So, pretty much the subs that we work with, we use project over project.

Paul Wurth:

Okay, that’s great. So, let’s just jump into it. March 15 is what we’re calling the date of when everything went down. We were talking right before this, that I was with my family and Phoenix on vacation, oblivious to this coming down the pike and hit us hard. I have four girls and a wife, and so, we decided to drive home to Omaha, Neb., which is like 20-something hours went through New Mexico, my first time and loved it. But that’s beyond the point. So, you’re in New Mexico, every state, every region sort of had different things and different unique experiences. What was it for you guys? What was it like?

Mike Fraembs:

When it first came out, what was really crazy was, we go to the National Home Builders Show every year, which this last year was in Las Vegas. So, we had a big gathering down there. We try to make it an annual thing, and that’s January starting off the year. We always learn tons of new stuff down there and get back and start getting back in the swing of things you get motivated and things that you want to accomplish through the year and everything, and then good old COVID-19 hits. It was baffling exactly what happened. I think there was just so much confusion. It was so uncertain, nobody knew what to do.

And so of course, kind of being reactive to everything we want to make sure properly secured, so we get all our spec homes sold, which a spec home is you build it for speculation, and you turn around and sell it after the home is completed. So comfortably, we like to keep about three to four spec homes on the ground.

Once COVID-19 hits we’re immediately thinking, oh no, here we go. This is going to be bad for the real estate economy. Time to button down the hatches and really kind of get in conservative mode. So, a couple months pass through, we sell all our spec homes. We’re still doing pre-sales, which we do quite a bit, primary vertical is pre-sales, which a client hires us to build their house and all of a sudden, the economy just explodes. And I think has pretty much been that route through the whole United States, but Holy cow, we never anticipated how busy residential construction would get.

Obviously, we did have some hurdles due to COVID-19. But here in New Mexico, we’re a pretty small population base. So, we didn’t really see that big of an impact of COVID-19 until, I would say about October is when we really started getting hit with it. So, you hear everything in New York, California, a lot of stuff in Texas, Seattle, all these bigger cities, you hear all the stories and healthcare providers and everything, how difficult things have been. And luckily, here Las Cruses, I don’t I even know, to be honest, population base, but I would say we’re probably about 150,000, so it’s not a big city, but it’s not a small city either.

And for the longest time, 20, 30 people here and there would be positive with COVID-19, nothing too major and October rolls around, and we just get ramrodded. And I think it’s because we’re so close to El Paso, Texas, which is a pretty big population base, it starts bleeding over into our community. And October, like I said, is when we got hit. And before that, we didn’t see a whole lot of negative effects other than some supply issues and things of that nature.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, just the initial shock of like, as you said what’s going to happen. So, I’m curious when you say conservative mode for a company of your style of building and size, what does that mean for you guys?

Mike Fraembs:

Just try to reduce some of the liability. Obviously, if we have four specs spec homes on the ground, and they’re not selling then obviously that’s a pretty good mortgage payment on four homes that are just sitting there. So, that’s what we try to do is we decided, okay we typically like to keep three to four specs on the ground, but just due to COVID-19, let’s minimize that and really sell these specs and kind of wait to see how things shape up. And looking back, I wish we obviously would have kept building specs and everything. It would have been really nice, but it’s one of those decisions you have to make. And here in our local economy, residential resale homes are at an all-time low, I think it’s typically hovering, maybe 250 homes on the market for resell.

Paul Wurth:

Volume, yeah. There’s nothing out there. So, I guess, did you guys feel like you took a loss, or you didn’t get max value for the ones that you did have in the ground? You were just like, we want to sell these things?

Mike Fraembs:

No, they actually sold really quick. When we made the decision that we weren’t going to continue building specs that we’re going to wait to see how the market reacts and see what happens with COVID-19, luckily, all the homes sold really quick. We did have an initial low when COVID-19 first hit because a model homes were shut down. We were considered essential service so, we were able to keep building, but just with the uncertainty, we were very cautious with people coming into the model home and really scheduling more appointments rather than having open houses and such. So, we did see an initial kind of lower traffic for the first couple of months, but things picked up immediately and the market just took off extremely well.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, it looks like it’s booming down there, which honestly it is in our Midwest as well, in Nebraska. And I think fortunately, for our industry, which we care so much about, I think it’s happened in a lot of places, so that’s really great. So, really what you’re saying is you’ve lost sort of some months where you could have been putting some more homes in the ground.

Mike Fraembs:

Right absolutely.

Paul Wurth:

But you guys are obviously doing that now. What’s sort of your outlook as we move into 2021 in your area, obviously, you guys are feeling pretty bullish about it.

Mike Fraembs:

Yeah, we’re feeling very confident for 2021. I think what really sparked a lot of the activity is the low interest rates. I mean, we’ve had people lock in less than 3%, which is unheard of, it’s basically free money. So, I think what’s really been driving people. I think 2021 is going to be a very solid year for both real estate and construction, not here just locally, but throughout all of the U.S. I wouldn’t say I’m worried about 2022, but I still kind of have my eye on the ball with that, kind of wondering how everything’s going to react after the new elections and all the political jargon and all that fun stuff.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, luckily, we’re past that at least for now, which is very nice. We’ll see what the next few months and years look like. I want to just maybe end with going back to that initial moment of unknowing what’s happening with the pandemic. I think this is really important for other business owners to hear and maybe relate to what was your message to your employees? What was kind of the ownership talking about as it relates or maybe even your subcontractors? You said you had a really great relationship with them. What was that dialogue like? What were you telling people?

Mike Fraembs:

I’ll give you both examples, when this first hit, our employees we’re almost like they’re an extension of our family. We’re working with them every single day, they mean a great deal, I couldn’t do what I do without our employees. And basically, we even had some new hires that we brought on board right before COVID-19 hit. And this was a gentleman that moved from the Lubbock, Texas area and moved all the way down here to take employment with us. So, obviously he was probably pretty shaken up and like, oh no, I hope I still have a job here in the coming months.

So, luckily our company has always been pretty stable, and we have enough to weather the storm, and we kind of had a meeting with everybody and basically just said, look we’re going to kind of take the ride on the roller coaster and see where things go. But most importantly is keeping everybody safe. Obviously, don’t want to put yourself in unnecessary harm’s way. However, we still obviously want to keep doing what we do, but at the same time, we need to keep our clients say, keep our employees safe and our subcontractors as well.

So, some of the things that we did was we tried to, typically on a construction schedule, we’ll stack multiple trades in the house at the same time. So, we did a few things as trying to let the electricians do all their job, same thing with mechanical and plumbers, let them solely in the house and do their scope of work before we bring somebody else in. So, we try to minimize some of the stacking we did.

Obviously, there’s some people that work on the outside, like your stucco contractors, concrete guys, things of that nature. And then he has some of your interior finished carpentry guys work in as well. But luckily, it seemed like everybody worked together really well. I think our state was one of the more strict states when it comes to the lockdown mandates and everything. Luckily, construction was deemed essential, but being in restaurant service, barbershops salons, it would be a whole different story, and I think I’d be talking about this whole COVID-19 issue entirely different if I was in that industry.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, and we talk about that a lot. It’s very fortunate for our industry and our small businesses that we deal with, that we were in the position we were, but we definitely feel for anybody else that is a small business that wasn’t as lucky. And hopefully, that turns around for sure. So, it sounds like you guys just had a renewed focus on the schedule, a renewed focus on just open communication with your trades about here’s why it’s important you’re not there when there’s other trades there and did your trades respond because of your good relations with them well, was it a good interaction?

Mike Fraembs:

They did, and what’s nice is a lot of our trades work well with each other. Sometimes when you put one subcontractor in with another, it could kind of be like oil and water, sometimes they just don’t click. But most of our guys have been working with each other for so long, they kind of knew their boundaries, they tried to keep their guys working on a certain aspect while other guys were work on other things, October-ish, when we started getting hit really hard is one employee test positive, it would basically take that whole crew down for, what was it, 14 days or something that they would have to quarantine.

So, that’s when we really started seeing some schedule impacts. And luckily, our clients have been very understanding and obviously, people are wanting to get into their homes on the holidays and things of that nature, but it’s just crazy times and kind of have to roll with the punches out there.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, it just really, I think highlights companies like yourself that have good relationships with their sub network and their employees and good communication to their clients because it seems like those companies, everybody was really understanding, everybody kind of understood this is a unique time and unprecedented time, and they weren’t maybe as harsh as they might be with other delays in the past, that’s great to hear.

So, looking forward or looking back, is there any lessons that you and your business partners have sort of learned that you’re going to take forward with you for the business, whether it’s because of COVID-19 specifically or just because of the situation you were put in?

Mike Fraembs:

I think it just falls into running a business, you always have to be quick on your toes. Things happen, you can never forecast the future, and we don’t have that crystal ball that’s going to tell us exactly what’s going to happen.

Some of the things that we were pretty fortunate on was, we always had a big focus on more of a smart home technology. My wife sells the homes so obviously her safety is high priority, a lot of people coming into the homes as well. So, it was nice being able to have a smart home where she could literally lock and unlock a front door to allow people to come into the house. We had cameras, so we could visually see what’s going on to the home, make sure things, especially with all the crazy riots and everything that were going on, that theft and vandalism wasn’t going on. Even simple things as being able to hit a button on your phone and it turns on all the lights so the home properly shows well. Things of that nature being innovative and just trying to stay ahead of the trend has really helped us significantly. And I think implementing new items like that and as things progress, keeping in touch with that.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, so your company’s strategy of always been on the forefront of technology. You realize that that really helped you during this time, so you’re going to keep pushing that. That makes a lot of sense. Well, that was great, a couple of things, you had mentioned the international builders show, which again, that’s gone all virtual this year, we missed it as well. We always have a big presence down there as you probably know.

Mike Fraembs:

Yeah, I always stop by and say hi to you guys all the time, so yeah.

Paul Wurth:

And we love that. We’re missing it this year, it was in Orlando. But for anybody who’s interested in the education part of it, just go to buildershow.com, there’s some great educational classes. I’m teaching one about virtual project management, and you can still sign up there. So, it’s called IBSx this year.

Mike, thanks so much for coming on. I mean, your story’s a great story. It sounds like without a few hiccups, you guys survive this and are thriving, so we wish you the best. I guess I have to ask everybody from New Mexico, is it red or green for you?

Mike Fraembs:

So, northern is more red, it’s all green down south. Green clearly is the way to go.

Paul Wurth:

If you don’t know what that is, Google it, New Mexico red or green. All right, Mike, man, we wish you the best. Totally appreciate your time and thanks for being a client of Buildertrend all these years.

Mike Fraembs:

Absolutely, Paul. Nice chatting with you guys.

Paul Wurth:

Alright, appreciate you. All right, thanks again, Mike, for being on the. Last but not least, we’re going to hear from Edgar Garcia with Bella Vista Custom Homes.

Edgar Garcia:

Well, we have to really adjust. I mean this pandemic hit us, I thought it was going to be a lot worse than what it affected us at this point. Luckily, also, I was the president association of builders at this time during the last year or so, I just finished really recently done with that, now I assume my post as past president.

There was a lot of stuff that was going on, and luckily we’re part of this great Texas Association of Builders that had a lot of blue as far as with the legislation in Texas, but basically we never lost a day due to COVID-19 because as far as our efforts with the Texas Association and our involvement with them because they write off a day. I know the County wanted to shut us down, but since we became essential businesses, we’re classified in that classification, we never lost a day as far as work. We’re lucky to be living in this great state of Texas that they never shut us down. They shut other businesses as well, as far as restaurants, bars and all that, but it just goes to prove what having a great association, being part of it, how it helped us as far as to continue business.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, that’s a really great take that we haven’t heard from other companies directly, but they have said that as a whole, the NHAB, as a country-wide organization, stepped up and helped sort of guide people through a lot of regulations that were coming down, whether it was the PPP loan, or it was the just the regulations on the job site, social distancing, things like that. But then locally, you’re saying that your Texas Association of Builders, TAB …

Edgar Garcia:

At the state level, they were able to talk to the governor and the planning commission to be part of the essential business, which we’re classified as essential businesses. And I know locally, there’s been a couple of times that they wanted to shut down as far as the construction industry because the only one that can shut down businesses is the governor.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, that was my question, so it had to come from the governor on the state level?

Edgar Garcia:

It has to come from the governor. And even our county officials, they shut down some of the businesses during that time, and the state had to file a lawsuit for them to open up the businesses as well. So, it’s been one of those things that, I don’t know, for some reason that, not the city so, but the county wanted. And here Texas, the county overrides the city. Bella Vista builds in the county as well as in the city and the county overrules whatever the regulations in the city as well.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, what I think is funny is that everybody had to get a quick education on their local state and federal government with this whole thing because it really didn’t matter all that much, city, county and state even federal to the everyday person but when COVID-19 came down and you are getting different rules from all four of those government entities you had to kind of figure out who had the say for everything, right?

Edgar Garcia:

Exactly, and one of the things, being the president association, and we have to address all these issues as far as the county, the city and try to work with them to come up with a solution for us not to shut down. Because if we shut down, I think, financially hurt the city and the county.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, exactly. So, that is interesting Edgar, you were the president of your local association of builders?

Edgar Garcia:

Correct.

Paul Wurth:

Trying to run your own business, and probably the hardest job president of association had to ever had to go through it, which is figuring out this pandemic, and people looking at you I bet, your companies in your association like, hey, give me some guidance here. You were doing double duty. Did they pay you extra now that you are out of it to be the president?

Edgar Garcia:

Well, I wished they did but not as being part of this association is one of the things, I considered kind of civic duty. We have a different president every year and for the most part, it has to be a developer or a builder that becomes president. Now, if there is no president or developers that want to be president, then we go to our associates, but to benefit the association I think the best candidate for that job has to be a builder or developer. To look for the best interest of the builders and developers at the same time.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, they should tip their cap to you the next time you guys have a dinner for the association and it get you in the hall of fame for having to navigate these waters.

Edgar Garcia:

It was also funny because the president of the Texas Association of Builders was also from El Paso.

Paul Wurth:

Oh really?

Edgar Garcia:

Yes, so like I said, it worked out great on our part because we had a really close hand as far as Texas registration through our president here, Randy Bolton, that he was a president of the Texas Association of Builders. And now, I’m also involved in several committees at the state level but like I said, everything he planned out and it worked out well for him. He also got the brunt of it being the president as well is one of the worst scenarios you could go through.

Paul Wurth:

Well, it also shines a light on the importance for companies who maybe have started coming into construction these last four or five years, maybe they have resisted joining local associations of builders or the state level, you are seeing now supporting those things are very important for the industry as a whole.

Edgar Garcia:

Good thing that you bring that up because the trend as far as associations are dying throughout the country. And going through this, a lot of people did not see the value as far as the association because during that time, was after March, we were probably having weekly meetings of all the different stuff that was coming, how do we address them? What do we need to do as builders to be able to do our part? So, we wouldn’t get as far as citations or anything or even try to keep the city and county happy as we doing our work.

Paul Wurth:

As you said we have been in construction for 14 and a half years as Buildertrend, and I can attest to your comment yeah, the associations were sort of dying in terms of the reputation of being needed by these companies. A lot of that is because of the internet and trade shows, we’re going down because there’s less of a need to go to a trade show to see that product in person whereas you’re seeing a lot of that being done virtually.

And I think a lot of people associated a lot of the value of associations with sort of these physical events, where you’d get together and you’d network, and you do continuing education classes and then you would do trade shows but that’s not the only value that these associations have, and I think that we’ve just shone a light on that it supports the industry as a whole, your local and state industry, and it’s a great resource for you as a contractor to make sure you’re doing everything right. And you got to support that stuff for that stuff to exist.

Edgar Garcia:

Exactly, and people don’t really see the value association until you really get involved. Here in El Paso with the city, we’re one of the very few cities here in the state that allows private inspectors with the city. And through negotiations with the city because we’re having issues as far as inspections where they’re falling behind, delays and all that stuff. So, there’s a company here in El Paso that does as far as inspections for the city and it’s a private company.

What I do is, when they submit a permit, I just take it to them, they take care of all the legwork as far as filing the permit. And then when it’s time to do the inspections, I schedule with them. So, it kind of works out, instead of having an inspector, some of these city inspectors, you can’t even talk to them or get them on the phone and they go do the inspections, and they don’t even work with you or anything like that, they just red tag and that’s it. And with this relationship that we developed with this private company, it’s a two-way street, you don’t get business from me if we’re not working together. It worked out pretty good. I mean, and like I said we’re one of the few cities in the state of Texas that we actually have private inspections.

Paul Wurth:

That’s a great example of what a local association lobby can do for you because that helps everybody. You can get inspections faster like you say, it’s more of a two-way street rather than just somebody slapping things then …

Edgar Garcia:

Even working with the city, you would schedule an inspection, you wouldn’t even know when the inspector was going to go there. Now, you would have to physically just spend a whole day there or just take your chances and hope everything would pass you wouldn’t even know until the end of the day you went to the job site and then you figured out that you’ve passed or failed. This way at least there’s a communication, what time are you going to be there either by text message or phone call and then you can meet up with an inspector, and it just works a lot better and it builds a business relationship between them and us.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, that seems like a win-win. So, I mean, I guess a great call-out would be, and I know we’re on a tangent here, but I think it’s important because it was highlighted by the pandemic is, your local and state associations are super important, they need your support. So, if you’re a contractor listening to this, go support your local and state associations get involved. As Edgar said he feels like it’s his civic duty, and I think that’s a great way to think about it, get involved and help the industry as a whole. Now, you involved in El Paso, we haven’t really told the audience yet, so you’re based out of El Paso, Texas. Can you give everybody just kind of the rundown of your business, what’s the name of your company, what do you guys do?

Edgar Garcia:

Well, it’s Bella Vista Custom Homes, I was looking at the days because I knew I was going to have the show, and I went back. Actually this is going to be our 20-year anniversary in July.

We’ve been building custom-homes, I’m a second-generation firefighter. And I started this company back in 2001 when I was still on the fire department, and I did it as a part-time. I was doing a little remodeling here and there but with remodeling people want you every day. And that’s something I had to, as far as school we work 24 on, 24 off. And I couldn’t do that all the time so we decided to start a company, it was me and my brother, and then we started Bella Vista, he’s got another custom-home builder here in El Paso, both of us are doing very well. But we started that and then the reason we went to the building, because he was also a firefighter, that way we could go do our jobs and then we can run the jobs as far as when we were off and we handle it as far as account or as far as our time.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, so you’re saying that yeah, so when you build a custom home you don’t have to necessarily be there every day, that schedule as a firefighter where you had three days on three days off or whatever your schedule was that actually worked well for you.

Edgar Garcia:

Exactly, it worked very well for me to being able to continue. So that business evolved, now we build anywhere from, I’m going to say probably from 18-24 houses a year, we build from eight to 10 million a year and we’ve been doing very well.

Paul Wurth:

How many people you got right now employed?

Edgar Garcia:

Here in the office, I’ve got seven and out in the field, we’ve got eight. Mostly what we do, we supervise our subcontractors but at the end also with the staff that we have in the field we finished out the houses to make them look as far as … we build real quality at home and you can get that out of the subs you physically have to have somebody from our staff finished off as far as for the quality that we’re looking for.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, I’ve always been interested in this because everybody’s business is set up differently, and there’s probably no right answer just depends on where you are in the nation and the different subs and trades you have there in quality. So for you, you finish things with your local staff, what kind of items does that mean is that paint touch up, is that the carpentry, what is that?

The very last details as far as molding and the corners, make sure that the house is as close as perfect as possible. Because there’s a bunch of builders in El Paso but our niche is quality. By hands-on, as far as people walk into our houses, you can actually feel and see the quality of our work. I think that’s what it kept us growing every year, we seem to be growing every year and then our clients they refer us to somebody else and that’s how right now, we got about 15 houses on the ground right now and then we’ll over 40. That’s crazy here in El Paso. And it’s going to take me two years to be able to build all these houses that we have right now.

Edgar Garcia:

That’s a good problem to have though, right?

Edgar Garcia:

Well, yeah, it is but then you suffer when all these customers are, when are you going to start my house, where are we going to start? And what I tell my customers right now, once you sign proposal and you sign contract, once what you’ve done as far as designing your house. It’s going to take us about a year and a half before we can even complete your house because it’ll take me six months before I can start and then probably another year to be able to finish your project.

Paul Wurth:

But with the type of quality they get with you, hopefully, they’ll hang on for that.

Edgar Garcia:

Yeah, and most of them are as far being able to work with our timeline.

Paul Wurth:

That’s great, yeah and a lot of that timeline I guess, can assume has been adjusted because of the pandemic, lead times on product ordering and just the availability for you guys to be able to do stuff, did you have an adjustment to the time it takes to build a home since the pandemic came?

Edgar Garcia:

Yes, absolutely. Usually homes here and for a production building, they’ll build in about three months. For these custom homes we’re probably knocking them out between eight and nine months, now we’re at the point it’s going to take a year and a half by the time we go into contract and finish the houses.

Paul Wurth:

And what do you attribute that to specifically?

Edgar Garcia:

You know what? It’s an interesting thing because we have this border here close to Juárez, El Paso borders with Mexico and the city of Juárez and what the COVID-19 did they shut down as far as only U.S. citizens go back and forth. Well, there’s a lot of labor force that was coming in from Mexico as far as for subcontractors.

Paul Wurth:

On a daily basis?

Edgar Garcia:

They live in Mexico, they have permits to come in and work, and then they go back at the end of the day. But when they shut down the border, we lost a lot of labor.

Paul Wurth:

Oh, wow.

Edgar Garcia:

And then with the rise of people, moving into El Paso and moving out of the big cities and trying to move into Texas. As far as our subcontractors don’t have enough people to be able to as far as to get to all the work that we have.

Paul Wurth:

Well, I think this is a great example of why we did the regional podcast. Because that’s so unique to where you guys are and a great unique story that people should hear. So, there’s two things there, first of all, labor shortage because you could actually permitted drive from Mexico across the border of Texas, I assume, and come work in the U.S. for the day and drive back. And that’s a lot of great labor that you guys had, beyond that though, you had mentioned something else I don’t want to gloss over, people are moving to Texas, right?

Edgar Garcia:

Yes, absolutely.

Paul Wurth:

I think I know why, but I want you explain why are people moving to Texas?

Edgar Garcia:

What’s happening is, for the most part, I think Texas, we have very big Republican as far as views. El Paso it’s kind of different because …

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, because you got Beto O’Rourke there.

Edgar Garcia:

Excuse me?

Paul Wurth:

You got Beto in El Paso. Beto O’Rourke.

Edgar Garcia:

Yes.

Paul Wurth:

So, he’s not Republican.

Edgar Garcia:

No, he’s not Republican. El Paso is considered a democratic city, but the residents we take advantage as far as all the Republicans, as far as what they enact and stuff like that, so we take advantage of that. But what’s happening now, people have, like I said, we never shut down. And that has to be part of as far as all the views as far as Texas has.

But what’s happening, there’s been a lot of people moving over from California, which is fine because they have lots of money to spend. Our building has gone up as far as a price and stuff like that, but then we suffer the consequences, what’s going to happen when all these people start moving in and started maybe turn Texas to a blue state, because that almost happened, and it’s bound to happen within the next couple of years here. And then we’ll see where that’s going to take us, because there’s a lot of how Texans feel as well as the right to guns and stuff like that. So it’s going to be different. I mean, the next couple of years is going to be very different to see what’s going to happen to Texas in the coming years.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, and you made a really good point. So, as I understand, a lot of people are moving to Texas for a few reasons, in the current time, the COVID-19 restrictions for businesses and just as a citizen, being able to go out and go to restaurants and things like that at your own will, that’s really loose there. But I think in general, people, because of the pandemic can now work and live anywhere they want, the businesses have gone remote and may stay that way and you can work virtually so you might look at yourself as, why am I in this 800 square foot apartment in New York or this 900 square foot house in California that costs me $700,000 when I can actually sell that, go to Texas where there’s no income tax, and I can buy something for half the price, twice as big and probably three times the quality, that’s kind of what’s happening.

Edgar Garcia:

That’s what’s happening, that’s really what’s happening.

Paul Wurth:

Do you have any room for me down there?

Edgar Garcia:

I tell you what, Texas is a big state, so there’s plenty room for a lot of people still.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, well, that’s good for you guys, but again, on a macro level, you’re looking at like, what’s that going to do to the color of the state? We’ll leave politics out of it, it’s been good for you guys right now. So, let’s just circle back to the COVID-19. As somebody with about 15 employees, because you said 7:00 in the office, eight in the field or something like that, as a business owner, when COVID-19 was happening, what were you thinking about your staff and how you wanted to communicate to them? Can you just kind of take me through that as the owner of the business, how you were thinking about that?

Edgar Garcia:

Well, we would never expect it will happen as far as everything going up and our sales almost tripled in a one-year period. And then having to, as far as going to be able to, because, like I said, the city was trying to close this down, we close it and we started losing as far as my employees, aren’t able to work, they’re able to feed the families and it starts a big chain reaction. And that was on my mind, am I going to lose my business? And that’s something that you worked for 20 years to be able to get to this level. And then all of a sudden wake up from March and say, you know what, this is going on. And you hear parts around the country are closing down.

They start to say, well, what’s going to happen and what we’re going to be do? And like I said, a good thing, I had a bunch of, as far as being the president, I was able to talk to other business, other builders, and we were able to come with solutions and adapt. The only thing you have to do is adapt and overcome. And what we did at our local level, we started, installing hand-washing stations anywhere, it could be very one of those real elaborate washing stations to a simple tank with a water and some soap. So, the subs could start washing and going there and wash your hands to prevent the spread. And then also what we implemented as part as builders, we would only have one subcontractor go in there and at a time, instead of having three to four at the same time. That way we kept their COVID-19 numbers down.

Paul Wurth:

You had to adjust the schedule.

Edgar Garcia:

Yes, just a schedule. That was the biggest thing because you usually have two or three subs working at a job at any time, and as far as to be able to drop to a single level, a single sub being at the job site. I mean, it takes coordination. They’re trying to be able to adjust to the schedule in as far as a matter of seconds, or even a couple of minutes behind on your schedule. And so, we can adjust that which worked out real good for us.

I mean, like I said, I’ve been using Buildertrend and it seems that every year we adapt something new. Last year, it was the last fight because my wife is a designer, and they had everything on notebooks ad notebooks. And finally, the production guy who’s out in the field that says, hey, every time we need something, we have to come to his notebook and see what it is.

So, my project manager, who’s helped me tremendously to be able to develop with the level that we’re at right now. And he says, I think we’re at the phase arrange to start bringing in selections. And my wife was totally against that because it was going to change her whole world. And it takes a lot of effort to be able to convince people the work the Buildertrend. It’s going to take a lot of time as far as to start selections. But once they’re there, they’re there. It’s a matter of a couple of clicks and you’re done.

Paul Wurth:

Changing habits in any industry, but especially our industry of construction, I’ve seen is really tough for employees. And it’s understandable, you get used to doing it in a certain way, that gives you some security in your job, and you know what you’re doing every day. And even if it does sound like, man, this is going to save our company money or your time. Sometimes it’s not worth it for them to even think about it. But one of the unique things about the pandemic is people were forced to change. There was no option, we are going virtual with meetings. We are going to start using digital signatures on documents because we physically cannot do anything else. So, do you think it got people used to change in this industry more than they ever have been before?

Edgar Garcia:

Yes, it had to because you had to very quickly adapt and overcome as far as what you needed to do for that day.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, and everybody was in it together, from the youngest employee to the owner, we all know because this is such a huge event in the world, this pandemic, we all know we have to change. Now, how do we do that?

Edgar Garcia:

But this kind of forces quick because before the pandemic I would never tell you, I’m going to be in a Zoom call. I hate looking at myself as far as being on the camera, but we had to change. I had to have my meetings or go to meetings, Zoom, whatever we had to do it to be able to continue functioning. And it was a quick change. And like I said, it was something that kept on your feet constantly because every day was a different day and he had to be adapting to every day. So, this pandemic, a lot of people have learned from this as far as how to adapt and overcome.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, that’s been one of the big positive, especially for this industry that has been so slow to adopt change or technology into the industry that’s really pushed forward. And I think that’s going to benefit the greater industry as a whole, I just do. I think we’re seeing some of that, you’re on with a handful of other clients across the United States and Canada, and almost every interview we’ve done, they’ve given us an example of how going virtual has saved them time, whether it’s driving to the permit office when they don’t need to, or having a selections meeting in person where it’s like, man, we could do so much more virtually and then record the whole thing. So, are you seeing some of that stuff too?

Edgar Garcia:

Yes, absolutely. When you came up with these podcasts, I started listening to them, and then you get into the rim or listening to one, you know what even though you’ve picked up one little thing, what’s in the other podcast. One of the things I picked up on one of your shows that you had, somebody, I don’t know the name of them, but he says to have a GoToMeeting or a Zoom meeting once a week to be able to, instead of going back and forth with these texts, emails and stuff like that, you get that set up a meeting with that client once a week, and you go over all their stuff. And we started implementing it and I think it’s working out pretty good.

Paul Wurth:

That’s great. Yeah, because people … I think, we just talked about that. But yeah, so people, the clients expect it so they can save their questions for the Zoom meeting. They don’t have to incessantly answer and then you can record the Zoom meeting and send it to them and say, hey, if you forget anything you can call, but maybe you should just check the tape.

Edgar Garcia:

Absolutely.

Paul Wurth:

That’s great. So, looking into 2021, it sounds like you guys are going gangbusters, which I think is great for you, very, very happy for you guys. What are you looking at it from the owner’s perspective? Are you looking to add bodies on the team? Are you looking for land in the area or what are you looking at over the over the couple of years?

Edgar Garcia:

I wish I could get bodies, but like a good company, you got to surround yourself with very good people, and that pool seems to be shrinking every year. It’s hard to find that good worker that’s willing to stick it out with you. As a business owner, I come in here sometimes at five o’clock in the morning and not only leave until seven or eight o’clock at night. But that’s kind of a business owner needs that kind of drive to be able to succeed. But at the same time, there’s very limited people that are willing to do that. I think that’s going to be the hardest thing to be able to … because he sees that everybody has a phone, and everybody wants to be a millionaire with that phone. But it doesn’t work that way. It takes hard work and dedication to be able to get where you’re at.

Paul Wurth:

Well, hey, people are migrating to Texas. So, if you’re listening to this right now, and you live in any state in the U.S., and you want to work your tail off for Edgar and Bella Vista, give them a call.

Edgar Garcia:

Yeah, absolutely. We’re looking for good people that want to work as far as to be able to grow the company.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, in all seriousness that labor shortage is an issue in that, we talk with everybody about that, all my friends in construction. And I think tying it back to what we talked about at the beginning, a local association and national association that could be a really good initiative for them, and I think most of them have that.

Edgar Garcia:

Well, and when you take off as here in Texas, because we’ve been fighting this for the last year, when you have as far as your master electrician, your master plumber, their average age is already 74, and they’re not being replaced. People are not wanting into where it’s trying to see a up early again, as far as high school at the state level, we’ve been trying to get these schools to start teaching the trades again because that’s what we need, what we lack of. Like I said, a master plumber the average age in the state of Texas is 74 years old. If you’re looking another five, 10 years, we’re going to be in a crisis.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, that’s exactly right. We had a guest a couple of times, Brandon from the Iowa Skilled Trades, they’re next door to us here in Nebraska in the Midwest. And he said the exact same thing is that this average age of some of these like dirt workers or electricians or plumbers or HPAC guys, they’re ready to retire, and who’s coming up through the ranks to replace them? And by the way, you can make a killing doing that stuff. It’s not like the blue …

Edgar Garcia:

It’s going to be a very limited amount of people that have those traits. or we’re going to be hurting. They say probably within the next 10 years, you’re going to see probably the small builders, we’ve got probably lose 50% of the small builders. The only ones that are going to be able to survive the big production builders that built thousands of homes because they’re the ones that have the deep pockets, and they’re going to be able to pay more for the services.

Paul Wurth:

Or they’d just be bringing it in house, do it themselves, yeah.

Edgar Garcia:

Exactly.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, well, hey, let’s keep fighting for the small builders because that we love them here at Buildtrend. I think I can speak to everybody on our team, it sounds like you did a great job with your local association. So again, you should be in the hall of fame in my book. And when you guys have those awards dinners down in El Paso, shoot me a note, maybe I’ll come down there and have a beer with you.

Edgar Garcia:

Absolutely, we’re glad to have you over here.

Paul Wurth:

All right, Edgar I’m going to let you go. If you want to learn more about Edgar and his business, Bella Vista Custom Homes, you can check them out at bellavistacustomhomes.com, I’m on there right now, some amazing pictures of the quality that Edgar referred to. And then check him out on Instagram, Bella Vista Custom Homes. Thank you again, really appreciate the recap of last year. Sounds like 2021 and 2222 are going to be killer for you. That’s amazing, and we wish you the best man.

Edgar Garcia:

Appreciate it, thanks for having me on your show.

Paul Wurth:

Appreciate it.

Edgar Garcia:

Have a good one.

Paul Wurth:

Thank you again for tuning into this episode of “The Building Code.” Make sure you subscribe and like wherever you listen to the podcast, also, head out to Facebook and join the Building Code Crew, and finally drop me a line at podcast@buildertrend.com. We want to hear from your suggestions on guests, or topic, anything. Thanks so much for joining and appreciate you.