Episode 1415
Affordable Modular Homes with HiFab and Brent Jackson
Now wait...before you start thinking about single wides and double wides this is NOT what we are talking about today. We dive into beautiful well crafted affordable luxury living in homes that are built in sections and delivered to the jobsite. The homes are built inside a climate controlled space so they are not covered in weather related debris and the time can be spent to do it right the first time. If you want to see a new way to build homes. This is your episode.
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Mentioned in this episode:
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Transcript
[00:00:27] Brent Jackson: That's something that we are, we think break. On in, in the modular world, so much of modular to date has really been run by engineers and, and trying to focus purely on cost. We're thinking that the market really understands and appreciates simple design. As simple as Eric and I think as most of your listenership knows, that's hard to pull off when it comes to remodeling and renovating your home.
[:[00:00:57] Eric Goranson: to The Round the House Show. This is where we talk home improvement [00:01:00] every single week. Thanks for joining us. I was on the interweb last week and I saw this cool project going out there, and I see a lot of projects, but when it's so different and shouldn't be so different, that's where it gets my attention.
[:[00:01:16] Brent Jackson: Eric, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be.
[:[00:01:31] Brent Jackson: there, man? Thank you. It's for recognizing all that cuz where we are today, we're exposing ourself to the, to a larger audience.
[:[00:01:58] Brent Jackson: It's just wonderful to find [00:02:00] somebody that you work with Well, and that's the case with us and Lake Plato. So when we got together, we said, Look, let's be intentional. Ultimately going into the modular space. But with my business background, we really wanted to test the revenue side. Sure. So in that regard, we did some case studies and some samples, if you will, in the Dallas area and uh, and was successful with that.
[:[00:02:44] Eric Goranson: Nice man. And yeah, that's the tough part. Sometimes you're sitting there trying to do something that's gonna be affordable for people out there. And man, the barriers just stack up sometimes and trying to get there.
[:[00:03:00] Brent Jackson: But I also understand that they've got some, the labor markets are really challenging for them as well, so I'm trying to be understanding there, but in the meantime, feel that we can at least take a little slug out of the crisis in order to get there. Eric, we have to be, We're for profit endeavor, so we have to be mindful of how to scale and to scale correctly and not in a hurry.
[:[00:03:53] Brent Jackson: For us in the front lines, the particularly during Covid, but I think really going forward, they'll continue to be on the front [00:04:00] line for us for some time. We wanna help solve that problem, and so we think we can do that. We just need a little.
[:[00:04:12] Eric Goranson: I've had so many meetings with people in my area and I'm up here in Portland, Oregon, and electricians can't find electricians for the electrical contractors. The, there's every single company I know right now in my area is held back on. Just because they can't find somebody to fill that slot. And of course our high schools and stuff out there have in many places in the country have missed the boat and gotten rid of all those programs and put in computer labs and other things in that area.
[:[00:04:49] Brent Jackson: Absolutely. And uh, you're hitting on one of our three mission points, which is workability.
[:[00:05:13] Brent Jackson: Then we offer benefits and full benefits for and labor so that they really can feel a part of the team and uh, and that labor stickiness or that labor, low turnover helps us. Keep corporate knowledge of how to build these things in a good quality manner, deliver them in a timely manner, but also really keeps us profitable in offering things that these that are at fairly lower cost at our competitors.
[:[00:05:53] Eric Goranson: Please throw it out before you look at these pictures, cuz this stuff's amazing. But one of the things about modular that I love is that [00:06:00] you now have people working inside in a much safer and healthier work environment versus outside in the rain at 40 degrees or outside in the heat at 120. And it's not that hot, but it feels like it's that hot.
[:[00:06:16] Brent Jackson: work in. Absolutely. And here in Texas, which is where we're initially focused, the heat is during summer months is, is sweltering. And I'm afraid, given where we are in climate change, it's not gonna go anywhere but up.
[:[00:06:49] Brent Jackson: That's something that we are, we think breaking the mold on in, in a modular world. So much of modular to date has really been run by engineers and. Focused purely on [00:07:00] cost. We're thinking that the market really understands and appreciates simple design. As simple as Eric, and I think as most of your listenership knows, that's hard to pull off.
[:[00:07:14] Eric Goranson: Yeah, you guys have all the details right from really durable exterior materials that'll hold up in your weather to finally finished interiors, which I love. This isn't where you came in and blew a bunch of orange peel on the walls.
[:[00:07:43] Eric Goranson: Thank
[:[00:08:03] Brent Jackson: And one of the, one of those is the actual finish on the walls. Believe it or not, most people just, they do blow on the orange peel and we just, we think that's not our aesthetic. The other thing that we do is, is you mentioned earlier on, is we focus on health. And so our paint, for example, is no voc paint, so that those folks that are expecting kiddos and or pregnant at the time, you can rest assured that you're living in a healthy environment in that room.
[:[00:08:45] Brent Jackson: And this is not us being special compared to other modulars. This is really all modular. You can have up to 90% reduction in waste. And what a what? What a meaningful impact that can have if that's adopted. But nationwide, we understand that the folks are a little bit ahead [00:09:00] of this on the sustainability curve in Germany and places like that around the world.
[:[00:09:20] Eric Goranson: Absolutely. Great example. There's a house, that's what six doors up for me right now that I'm watching be built. I've counted. They're on their second dumpster of excess materials that's being framed, hauling off the job site from lumber cuts to everything else, and it's ready to get picked up again. Cuz I walk my dogs past it every day and I keep continent.
[:[00:09:55] Brent Jackson: Absolutely. What we try to do a strike of balance so that the customer, they can [00:10:00] choose from four different stucco colors.
[:[00:10:24] Brent Jackson: And as, as we've said, it's just, it, you're limiting so much waste, which is so good for, I got ki I got four kids and they'll have kids, I'm sure. And it just gotta be mindful, I wanna be mindful of, of how that impacts them and so on and so forth.
[:[00:10:42] Eric Goranson: Absolutely. They turn around, they're paying for that expensive material to show up in the job site, and then they get on the second time because those dumpsters aren't free going out of there. And so you're paying twice for material that you didn't even use. So jet on the cost effectiveness outside of the.
[:[00:11:34] Eric Goranson: But a high quality finish on the inside still lends to somebody being able to do something super custom and make it their
[:[00:11:53] Brent Jackson: Is for all of our home buyers to, to find that space that, that excites them to put their artwork, whether it's their own or, [00:12:00] but to really focus on that component of this living experience and having art. And again, the accessibility, visibility to, to nature around them with both the placement of the finish, the windows.
[:[00:12:21] Eric Goranson: Yeah, let's talk about the healthy side of this as well. I wanna talk about some of the outside your stuff doing here in a minute, and we'll wait to go to that, but man, you guys look like you have the right system inside.
[:[00:12:56] Eric Goranson: Looks like you guys are tackling that right off the bat. Yeah.
[:[00:13:28] Brent Jackson: Onto the consumer, but something that has a meaningful impact as the no voc paint or as cabinetry that doesn't have off gassing or at the flooring that we have. It's really simple. With a concrete floor, people look at it and the first question they have is, This is beautiful. Why do more people do it?
[:[00:14:02] Brent Jackson: So it all worked out and I wish I could say that. Yeah, that there was, that I was this orchestrator completely. There were a lot of things where you just, you find in the process that you say, Oh, that was a happy accident. I, There's a benefit to this. We're gonna keep it in. It's ironic.
[:[00:14:20] Eric Goranson: were super cool. And somehow we got way away from that and it just a hundred years later, it seems it's getting absorbed now. But you ever walked into one of his homes out there? He had that trademark red concrete floor that was stunning and you didn't see tile covering it up or anything else. And you're right.
[:[00:14:46] Brent Jackson: Absolutely.
[:[00:14:58] Eric Goranson: It's funny, I've been testing [00:15:00] stuff at my house cuz my house is one big test house with the radio show and podcast of new stuff. My, I put in a healthy home system kind of air conditioning system here with an air scrubber. My air scrubber is too good. My wife can't bake bread cuz it kills the yeast inside the house.
[:[00:15:29] Brent Jackson: We, that was pre covid when we made those decisions to use the UV filter.
[:[00:15:59] Brent Jackson: It's a little bit of an [00:16:00] extra cost, but again, it's, we're very transparent with our client. Of why we do what we do. We pick and choose where it makes sense to, to spend the money and, and that was definitely one that we felt very strongly about.
[:[00:16:27] Eric Goranson: Those nice textures of the home and wrapping 'em into kind of an outdoor living space as well.
[:[00:16:51] Brent Jackson: And you can be in the middle of near downtown Dallas and still have that experience, is what we were after. And so these, these, [00:17:00] this particular product line, the haciendas fallen nicely into that urban setting. And does provide for that, again, line of sight, very open feel. What's interesting when we have clients, customers walk through our model, we don't turn on the lights on purpose so that when you walk in, there's so much natural light.
[:[00:17:41] Brent Jackson: I think it's a real thing and really impactful on everybody's general happiness during the day.
[:[00:18:04] Eric Goranson: And I think embracing what's outside a little better goes a long ways.
[:[00:18:12] Eric Goranson: what I like too, that you guys are doing is you're battling that affordable home. Battle out there as well. These are not 1.5 million homes when you look at what's going into it as far as quality, but they're very affordable homes, it seems.
[:[00:18:29] Brent Jackson: it, it's, we would, we want to continue to push down cost and you know that that's our mission and that's my personal covenant is to solve that or be a part of the. We're not there, We're not where I want to be, uh, where I hope to be. We are making a difference, but that's, I think that's just how, as a founder and CEO of a company, you can have to be wired is, is you really just want to keep improving.
[:[00:19:34] Eric Goranson: Amen, Man. Couldn't agree more. And you know, it's interesting outside of the land cost, you know that house is the other next biggest thing that goes into a property like that. And you guys of course really can't control the land cost thing. But I could see you guys taking this while outside of Dallas if you.
[:[00:19:58] you're,
[:[00:20:13] Brent Jackson: We just also need to be mindful of growing smart in a smart manner. And our intention is that in the next three to five years, we will start to to grow outside of the state.
[:[00:20:34] Eric Goranson: Great example here in Portland, Oregon metro area where I live, The city of Portland here last year was building affordable housing. And I'll use my air quotes with it, but their costs for the building were $400,000 on up. Wow. And I'm like, there's gotta be better options than that guys. And they. Quality built like [00:21:00] what you guys are doing.
[:[00:21:22] Eric Goranson: So talk about an unhealthy home. And I've talked about this and I know my listeners are rolling their eyes a little bit cuz they've heard this story for me. But I can walk by multi-family unit projects here and because that plywood or OSB has been sitting out for two months in the rain, it's black and they're putting house wrap around it.
[:[00:21:47] Brent Jackson: Yeah, that's hard to hear, but I know that it happens and not just in your fair bird. It happens across the country and it is a shame. It doesn't have to be that way.
[:[00:22:16] Eric Goranson: Yeah. And it's just so much safer for the worker as well.
[:[00:22:44] Eric Goranson: It doesn't happen because you've got too many eyes setting on something. We're out on a job site. That last guy framing might have got it good enough, but it's not the quality that, for instance, you guys would let out the door with that extra set of eyes checking everything.
[:[00:22:58] Brent Jackson: That's a solve that we are very, [00:23:00] very focused on.
[:[00:23:16] Brent Jackson: really pulling back from the development space and squarely focused on the manufacturing.
[:[00:23:43] Eric Goranson: so I could see that man.
[:[00:23:59] Brent Jackson: [00:24:00] Smart.
[:[00:24:21] Brent Jackson: And so there's a little bit of what we would call a bifurcation of risk there, where we take on the builders risk, which is part of our platform anyways, and it really allows developer to breathe a little bit easier.
[:[00:24:44] Brent Jackson: 200.
[:[00:25:10] Brent Jackson: In a more problematic way.
[:[00:25:29] Eric Goranson: So style wise, it seems you guys have done a decent job too, of style and a box. So you have sensible options, but you haven't turned into like what you do with, if you were gonna order a brand new car, you have these options you can go through. But everything coming out the door isn't custom either, where you're, it's you're, To put it into the car world.
[:[00:26:00] Brent Jackson: side. You're peeling the curtain back a little bit here, Eric, and so I'll go with it. Yeah.
[:[00:26:32] Brent Jackson: And that was really just the genesis and basis of that microsite. But our full launch is gonna be pretty, pretty slick. And that will be a website that'll go out probably in December or January, and you'll be able to go on and click the colors, as I said, the panel, the color of stucco called the panels.
[:[00:27:09] Brent Jackson: All we're simply doing from an efficiency standpoint is changing out the dye and the stucco and changing out the rolling from one panel color to another. So it's the best of both worlds. The buyers get the, get a, a true sense. Uh, several. When you've, when you amalgamate all of the different options they have it, it comes out to several hundred different styles that they could choose from in effect.
[:[00:27:42] Eric Goranson: order. Yeah, that makes sense because it could drive you guys nuts. Just on the product acquisition side, if you had, quote unquote, too many options out there, because every custom home builder in the United States battles at right now with Mrs.
[:[00:28:11] Brent Jackson: Yeah, we are unashamedly not a custom home builder. We, we offer customization through our website and that's really, and so we're, we very much are open that this is a technology component to the system and a systems component.
[:[00:29:00] Eric Goranson: That is insanity that I absolutely love. That is cool. So you can, It's like Amazon, Where's my Amazon delivery? Oh, it's down the street. It's literally that kind of technology to, Oh, cool. It's coming off the finish line there and.
[:[00:29:19] Brent Jackson: I, you saw how the hard it was to get on this call. For me, it's a very simple technology. The issue is that construction, I think by design, stayed out of the technology world because it didn't, it enjoyed operating in that gray area and, and so we're pulling the lid off that. Doing it from the ground up.
[:[00:29:49] Eric Goranson: It's funny that you bring up technology and I've got a lot of friends up in the Northeast and I've been up there as a technology speaker for different groups and I [00:30:00] decided, they actually had me come up to the Northeastern Retail Lumber Association and talk.
[:[00:30:22] Eric Goranson: Our industry is very behind on, like you talked about, marketing and communicating with homeowners or potential homeowners or even other builders that are putting these things in. How to do this and what it's gonna look like. And I think that you guys are gonna really bla some trails and that's exciting.
[:[00:30:45] Eric Goranson: So in a nutshell, how do people track you down? Because if they're looking to do this, and I guess you guys are getting a waiting list going, but if we're gonna sit there and talk about this, we gotta let people know how to find you in the Dallas area, at least [00:31:00] for, uh, for this
[:[00:31:01] Brent Jackson: I would be remiss if I didn't shine the light on the city. We are in, and who embraced us with open arms, and that's Grand Prairie, Texas. It's a smaller but very progressive city that sits between Dallas and Fort Worth. For us, strategically it makes sense to be Central, Central located, but to be in Grand, Grand Prairie is just a wonderful thing.
[:[00:31:51] Eric Goranson: Perfect, man. Thanks for coming on today and let's keep in touch because. I'm excited for what you guys are doing out there and I'd love to see this [00:32:00] as you guys dip your toes into other areas and see how it goes in the future. Cuz I think you guys got a pretty good future
[:[00:32:07] Brent Jackson: Thank you so much for having me on.
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