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The Tracewater Homes Podcast brings you inside the world of modern homebuilding, market trends, and the partnerships shaping the future of residential construction. Known for their innovative steel-frame homes, Tracewater dives into what today’s buyers want, how the industry is evolving, and the experts who help bring every project to life. Whether you’re a homeowner, agent, or builder, this podcast delivers insights, inspiration, and behind-the-scenes conversations from the front lines of construction.
The following is a transcript of the video:
**Jeannie:** Hi, I'm Jeannie with Trace Water Homes. Welcome back to our podcast. Today's episode, we're going to talk about the five steps and how easy it is to build with Trace Water Homes. I am assisted today by Matt with Trace Water Homes and Brent as well. So, starting with you, Matt, on step one, how do people really get started with the process and Trace Water Homes?
**Matt:** Well, I mean, really the first step is obviously to go to our website. There's a great way to connect with us there. You can fill out a contact form, get your information into our system. You can reach out by email. There's all kinds of different ways to contact us.
But as far as the first step goes, if you have a lot, that's great. We can work with you on, you know, helping you figure out what to do on that lot. If you don't have a lot, our sales team is great at finding that lot for you. Give them some criteria, tell them where you want to be, what type of property you're looking for, and they're going to go to work really hard trying to find that for you so that they can find you just the right property.
And then following that, it's really picking out the plan. We have a number of plans pre-designed on our website. You're able to go on the website, see those plans, look at the different options that might be right for you. So we're going to pick that plan. We're going to pick out structural options that we have available for that, and really decide what it is you're looking to build.
**Jeannie:** So, let's just say they've connected with our sales team. They're looking at a couple of different lots. And we all know that different lots can come with really different price tags. So, maybe you're looking at a $60,000 lot. Seems like a great deal and you're looking at one that you also like and it's $80,000. How can they do a true apples-to-apples comparison on knowing which lot is right for them? Brent, do you want to handle that one?
**Brent:** Yeah, absolutely. So, we have developed a really cool tool for our sales agents to use and trained them on this tool to help estimate some of the site-specific costs that go into building on a particular lot. Because like you said, lots are very unique. And so the $60,000 lot might feel like it's a good deal because it's cheaper on the sticker price, but when you actually dig into it, maybe that lot doesn't have any utilities available or it's going to need a really long driveway, which is going to add cost to the build of your home, things like that.
And so with this tool, our agents can quickly and easily evaluate and come up with a range of prices for what those site-specific costs might be. And that's really just a rough estimate intended to help compare two lots side by side. But it will definitely help the agents and help the client pick their lot. And then from there, once you've narrowed down a couple of specific lots, that's when Matt or myself can get involved and really start to look at those site-specific costs on a closer level and come up with actual estimates and things like that.
And then, as we move into the build process, we'll provide a contractor for those things. Something that we pride ourselves on at Trace Water is that even though we're building on your lot, we take care of everything. There are other "on your lot" builders out there that will require a client to hire a tree-clearing contractor or connect their own utilities through the city or have somebody come in and put a septic in for them. And we're going to take care of all of those things. Those will be wrapped into the cost of the build, which actually is kind of a good transition to step two in the financing piece. Matt, do you want to take that over and talk about how they can wrap some of those costs into their mortgage? They're not having to come up with cash to pay for connecting utilities and things like that.
**Matt:** And that's actually the really great piece of the way we have our process set up. In the circumstance you were talking about where they're having to do all of that, they're having to write checks for all of these things. And so many times, the process is they have to go buy the lot, then they have to pay for all of these improvements, and then they get to start construction on their house, which really probably blows their budget costs totally because they don't even know. They're just writing checks as they go and they're like, "Well, we're this far deep in now and we don't even know where we're going with all of this."
**Jeannie:** And the other thing is time on that. Sometimes it's years later that they actually get to build. We've had clients reach out to us before that say, "I have a lot. I'm spending money on utilities right now. I'll reach back out in a couple years when I've saved up more money."
**Brent:** Why would you put your life on hold when you don't have to?
**Matt:** Yeah, that's true. And that's what I think. Maybe there wasn't enough transparency upfront and or they haven't found us yet to know that we'll do all of that for them. But I think a lot of times people think the process will be one thing and it's very much something different. Maybe they've talked to a few builders and that's the direction they've been led and that's just a really unfortunate experience for them. And it is—they've saved up money to build a home and now they're spending it on these site-specific costs, improving the land that they want to build on, but then they have to go back to the drawing board and start saving again so that they have a down payment to actually build a home.
**Jeannie:** Yeah, it's part of our transparency upfront policy that we have is helping people really know their numbers right away. And that is another segue into step two, which is financing.
**Matt:** And so to alleviate a lot of those strains that we've talked about, we've partnered with Chevlin Lachler at Acasher Mortgage. And she has some really great construction-to-perm loan programs. And the beauty of it is all of these costs we're talking about can be rolled right into the construction financing, including the purchase of the lot. So, and it's a one-time close. They can close on the lot and close on the construction financing for the home right on the frontend, and when we're finished building the house, they'll just do a modification at the interest rate at that time and convert that to their permanent financing. No more closing twice because it's all done upfront.
And you know, the beauty of that is even if you already own your lot, you can still use that lot as part of your construction loan process. So now you've got a lot that you own free and clear and you're able to put that in as equity into the project, which is absolutely amazing.
**Brent:** And sometimes even if you don't own it free and clear depending on how much equity you have built up in a lot. Every situation is unique. We would encourage people to speak with Chevlin about their specific situation. But yeah, there are a lot of ways that you can get into a home without having to come to the table with nearly as much money as people think.
**Matt:** Right. Exactly. And so if you have financing on that property right now and you want to roll that into a construction loan, they can pay off your current financing, assuming the numbers all work. There's a lot of different options there. But that also leads us to the other piece that people are really concerned about that falls into our step two, which is insurance.
We're not waiting until the end of the build for you to find out how much it is going to cost to insure your home. Now, two different things to talk about here. One, we've designed our homes with insurance carriers to be very, very insurable at really, really good rates. In fact, we're getting rates that are comparable to concrete homes. So, really low insurance rates. But two, you know that upfront. So, we have a preferred insurance provider, which is Fuller Insurance out of Santa Rosa Beach, and they've already looked at our plans and went to their carriers and asked, "What would it take to insure these homes and come back with rates on them?" So, right upfront, if you know your land and you know your plan, you're able to go get a quote on insurance and know what you're going to pay when you're done. So, again, transparency, no more surprises. You don't get to the end and all of a sudden find out you've got an insurance bill that you were just absolutely shocked by, which impacts your mortgage payment ultimately.
And that's what most people are going to be concerned about. I mean, if you have an insurance quote that is $6,000 higher than what you can get with a Trace Water home through Fuller Insurance, that's hundreds of dollars a month, right? And that's what really impacts people's day-to-day life.
**Brent:** That can make or break someone's ability to actually close on the home. Finding that out a week before closing, and all of a sudden you can't afford your monthly payment anymore, that's a very bad surprise to get when you're so excited to move in.
**Jeannie:** Yeah. Going back to the financing piece for just a second, it seems like step two and step one kind of are a little bit of a symbiotic process. You can be looking for your lot, but maybe you should also be taking that first step talking with Chevlin to get pre-qualified to know exactly where you stand.
**Matt:** Yeah, absolutely. I mean, really, when you talk to one of the people on our sales team, one of the first things they're going to recommend is that you do reach out to Chevlin and get that pre-qualification because now you have a really good target on what to be looking for for land and what house plan you should be looking for, so that you don't get too far downfield without knowing those things and then be disappointed. We always talk about how we only want happy surprises. That's part of our process there—that you understand affordability from the beginning so that we're guiding you down the right path, not taking you down somewhere where you're going to get really excited and then really disappointed.
**Brent:** And sometimes it goes the other way, too, where people can actually afford more than they thought they could if you already own the lot and things like that. Now you don't have to come up with as much cash to close and you're only financing the build cost. Now maybe you can afford a bigger plan than you thought you could have or you can afford to add more upgrades to it than you thought you could. Having that pre-qualification is important just to know where you stand from the beginning.
**Matt:** Yeah. It comes down to the more we know on the frontend, the more our team can help guide you through the process.
**Jeannie:** Yes. So once people have found their lot, selected their plan, they're pre-qualified, and they know about what they want for structural options, what do they do next?
**Matt:** Wow. All right. Well, next is the construction agreement, the contract. We have a construction agreement that they will sign that tells you everything that's going to go into the home, specification-wise, at sort of a high level because the next step, which we'll get to, involves actually picking the selections. So, we'll sign the construction agreement, but what that does is that allows us to then go to work on all of the behind-the-scenes processes that have to happen. The minute we have a signed construction agreement, we're going to start sending things out for surveys. We're going to send for what we call site-specific plans. We're going to be working with our team to get everything ready behind the scenes to make permit application—all of those things that have to happen so we can actually start construction on the house. And then in the meantime, while that's all going on, then we're going to go into the next step, which you can talk about is step three.
**Jeannie:** Yeah. So, during that very boring, low-emotional-impact time of permitting and things like that, we're going to keep the party going and we're going to roll right into step three, which is choosing your color selections. So, at this time the homeowner will have a homeowner portal. They'll be able to look through all of the digital catalogs and see everything that's available, and then they can start hitting favorites and really starting to dial things in. We've got a really great selection process. We do have some physical samples, but everyone can just make their selections at their own convenience from home, which we get a lot of great feedback on. We do a lot of building for people that don't live right here on the coast and it's extremely distance-friendly. We've got people working around the clock. We've got nurses that are awake all night long and they're on their break and they're looking at cabinets and countertops.
Once they have made their selections and they want to move into finalizing selections—it's usually about a three-week process or so that people have to make their selections—then they meet with one of the people on the design team in person or on Zoom. It works very beautifully on the virtual platforms and we just go through everything. We make sure that we answer all their questions. Maybe people are deciding between a couple of options and they would just like a third person's perspective or a designer perspective on what might look best. But by the end of that meeting, the goal is everything is digitally signed off on and they're feeling very confident about all the things that they chose for their new home.
And then we give them that 48-hour buyer's remorse window because we all know that if there's something keeping you awake that night, we should probably give you some time to think about it. So 48 hours, if something really isn't sitting well with you or you need to settle that argument that you thought was settled, just get back with us and we can make that change within 48 hours. But once that 48-hour mark hits, the selections all go to the purchasing department. And what happens from there?
**Matt:** Well, people don't realize this, but I immediately get to work getting quotes and starting orders for things that have long lead times. And so, it seems like, "Oh, well, we haven't gotten to that phase of construction yet. Can't I just change this real quick?" Well, no. We probably already have those things on order. It's already in process and changing it now leads to delays in construction or mistakes that could happen because we already had one thing ordered and now we're changing to something else. What if we put the original selection in the house when you changed it to something else? So, as soon as we have those selections, we go to work immediately on planning the build process and ordering the things that need to be ordered in advance. And so that's really where that 48-hour window comes in and why there's that cutoff.
**Brent:** Well, and it's even valuable for our trades because our trades are looking at the things that are going into the house and they're using that to budget their timeline on the project. So, they're using it for scheduling purposes and also for pricing purposes. So, it's not just our internal use, but the trades need it for their benefit as well.
**Jeannie:** Yeah. And it's not to have a rigid process. It's to have an efficient process that delivers the home expectation without error. And so the process is in place to really be able to provide perfection in the end. So, let's talk just a little bit about where we go with questions like, "But you know, it's just this little change," maybe it's just one thing, without realizing all the things that are affected in the chain of that one thing.
**Brent:** Yeah, absolutely. So, we do allow custom option requests.
**Jeannie:** Request is the keyword there.
**Brent:** Yes. So we will evaluate that custom options request and see if it's something that we can accommodate. If so, we'll put a price to that and provide that to the client, and if they choose to add that price to the cost of their home and move forward with that, then we can do that. But even in that situation, like you said, people will think, "Oh, it's just one little thing. Why is it so expensive?"
Let's just use a window for example. So, we're going to move a window. Now it impacts the steel framing. We have to make sure that we communicate that change to the steel framing manufacturer and that they accurately capture that change, get the window in the right spot, it's the right size, all of those kinds of things. Remove the window from where it used to be or whatever may have happened.
Or say we're adding a window. Windows aren't cheap, especially impact-rated windows. And so now we're paying for a window and installation, and now where there used to just be a flat spot of drywall inside, we're adding the trim on the bottom of the window. Or if they upgraded to the trim around the entire window, now there's trim and labor that goes into that. On the exterior, you have siding trim that has to go around that window, which includes labor. So there are a lot of things behind the scenes—it's not just "add a window there." There are a lot of steps that go into that. There's a lot of extra material and work that has to be done to make that happen.
**Jeannie:** Well, and even we have an option to include blinds in your home. Well, if you add a window now, we have to adjust the pricing for that option. So, it affects things even beyond just that particular window.
**Brent:** That's true. Yeah. Now, in the portal, I'll have to go in and change. Now, they have a custom price for the blind option that exists only for that one client. And so yeah, I mean just a window can affect drywall, paint, the steel frame, the siding, just all of that. And so, you know, we just say that to educate really so that people understand that. I know that if you're not in the industry, you think it is just a window. But there is a lot more that goes into it. But again, we do offer custom requests that we can accept or deny, and also the homeowner can accept or deny the price that comes with it. That just kind of helps people understand a little bit about why some of the policies are the way they are.
**Jeannie:** So, we've been through steps one, two, and three. Their color selections are all complete. They're feeling really good about all of that. Brent, where do we go from there?
**Brent:** Well, I actually wanted to touch on one thing before we got there. About selections, that I think is really cool and really important that people understand about Trace Water Homes and the way that we have these steps set up. It sounds like a lot. We have a whole podcast episode talking about the steps to building a home, which it is a lot, but we've set it up so that it's a lot for us and not for the client. It's really streamlined from the client perspective, but there is a lot that goes on in building a home. But on the selections piece, the steps kind of go back and forth with each other a little bit, and that's where we handle that chaos in the background. Selecting everything before the final construction financing is in place—we have all worked with other builders where that's not the case.
For those that are watching and don't understand this process, we have you pick your plan, then you pick all of your structural options and finish options, cabinets, countertops, all of those things. And then we go back to the financing step before the construction loan closes. That way, everything in your home can be wrapped into that construction loan. Yes, there are, like I mentioned, other builders that we've worked with where that's not the case and you're just financing the base price of the home and then you get into selections later. Well, now all of a sudden you want to add the upgraded kitchen package or upgraded appliances, and you're having to come out of pocket for eight or 10 or $15,000 for some of these upgrades. Whereas by pre-selecting everything, now it can get wrapped into the cost of the construction loan and you can finance all of that.
**Matt:** Or the other common scenario of placing allowance numbers inside the contract and saying, "Okay, when you go select your, let's use tile for example, you've got an allowance of X amount of dollars." Generally speaking, those allowances will not cover what people want. And so they wind up in a process where every time they go to select something, it's costing more and more and more. And they keep writing more and more checks. We've taken that pain and that uncertainty out of the process because before you close on your financing, you know what you're going to spend and it's all included in the financing. And once we start construction, you're not having to start writing more checks for stuff that you're picking out.
**Brent:** Absolutely. And Jeannie mentioned transparency and pricing earlier. When you go into the client portal and begin to make selections, the exact dollar amount of that upgrade is shown. Again, other brands that we've seen in the past will put something like "it costs $20 per square foot to upgrade from this countertop to that countertop." You do the math—how much does that impact my overall cost? I've already taken all of the prices and put them to each upgrade option. And so when you go in there, instead of countertop upgrade being $20 per square foot for this upgraded quartz, it's going to say $2,400 or whatever the final cost is.
It's going to vary by plan because every home, if it has a larger kitchen, there's more square feet of countertop, so that upgrade is going to cost more. But based on your specific plan, those prices are all predetermined. So there is no guessing, there's no, "Oh, let me whip out my phone real quick and do some math." It's all pre-priced and so you know exactly how much it's going to impact the overall cost of your build.
**Jeannie:** Yes. And that is a very excellent point because there is so much value and peace of mind that comes with knowing you're all in before you're too far in.
**Brent:** Yes. And the portal lets you preview the price before you actually make the finished selection. So, if you get into it and you've got $50,000 worth of upgrades and you only budgeted for 40,000 worth of upgrades, now before you make your final selections, you can go back in and have those difficult conversations of, "Okay, what's more important to us here?" And figure that all out before you get too far downfield.
Moving on to probably the most exciting step is construction, step four. This is where things actually start to take shape. So, once we have everything pre-selected, the construction financing closes, and we have our permit in place, our team's going to go to work on building the house. That's going to start with a pre-construction meeting with the client on their site. We do that right before we get ready to go with tree clearing. And we do that for a couple of reasons.
One, we have the surveyor come and stake the property with the corners of the house where the house will be located on that specific lot. That way, when we meet on-site with the client, we can walk through with them and show them exactly where their house will sit. "You can kind of guess on where we're standing. We're about in the living room right now. This will be your view out the back at the trees and the creek that runs through," or whatever may be there on that lot. You can also see, okay, this is the perimeter of the home, so these are the trees that are going to have to be removed. This is really important because people want the house, but they also want the trees, and they need to understand that we have to put the house somewhere. So, knowing which trees stay and which trees go is really important upfront.
A lot of builders are just going to come in and they're going to clear-cut the whole thing. And I'm not going to say we've never done it because we've had to do it, but it is not our first choice to do that. We're going to try to preserve trees anytime we can. Obviously not to the detriment of the house, but when we can preserve them and keep that natural beauty, we're going to try to do that. Absolutely. That is one thing that we're very aware of and that we try to do every time we build a house is keep, specifically, trees along the property lines for some privacy. Trees help provide shade, which reduces energy costs. I mean, there's obviously the beauty piece of it. There are so many reasons to keep trees. It's easier certainly to just clear-cut the lot, which is why so many builders do it, but it's not the right answer. And so meeting on-site and being able to walk through and look at what trees are going to have to come out and what we're going to be able to leave is important.
Again, we mentioned every site being unique. Sometimes there are restrictions that we have to follow when it comes to tree clearing and stuff like that, too, depending on where the lot's located and what type of trees are on the property. So we may run into situations like that, too, where we can't remove certain trees or things like that, but we can go over all of that at that pre-construction meeting. And then we will go through and confirm all of the selections one last time just to make sure that the plan that they've chosen and the layout and everything is 100% good. Because once we move on from that, we're building and now it's really hard to make changes. So that pre-construction meeting is just kind of the last opportunity to review everything before we really get rolling on the project.
And then my team's going to take it from there. We'll clear the trees and start with the foundation. We have a lot of other steps that go on in between there. There's underground plumbing roughing that happens during that foundation phase, but once the foundation's done, we'll move into framing and mechanicals. Every week the client is going to get an update through the app, the same one that they made all of their choices and selections through. So they'll get photos and a description of work that was completed this week, and a description of what we anticipate will be happening next week. It makes it really easy for clients to keep up with their build from anywhere.
**Matt:** You were just telling somebody not too long ago about a client that we had that spent their entire build process out of the country.
**Brent:** They did. It was pretty cool. Yet they were very involved. I think they came back one time during the build process just to see it and then went back out of the country.
**Matt:** What I think is really great about what we're talking about right now is if you set the right expectations for the homeowner upfront, they can feel comfortable to leave the country for a year while we build the house. You have that meeting with them—maybe it's virtual, maybe they're on FaceTime, or maybe that's the one time they come and want to just be involved. But when you walk through details such as which tree stays and which trees go, the expectations are perfectly clear. Everybody knows, everyone's on the same page. They know exactly what to expect the next time they come.
Really and truly, going all the way back to step one and just being able to evaluate two different lots that are two different prices. It starts off an "apple-and-orange" comparison, but with our tool, it becomes an "apple-to-apple" comparison. That, too, is just setting the right expectation. Getting your insurance and getting your financing in place—you're setting those expectations early upfront, no surprises later on. The color selections—you made the great point about how all the pricing details are there. We're setting the expectation for what the cost is. There isn't going to be anything hidden later on. Through this entire process, we're just helping set the stage with clarity. I just really think that that is unique and I think it's extremely important. If I was building a new home, it's exactly what I would want.
**Brent:** Absolutely. And so after the pre-construction meeting, there really aren't any other specific meetings on-site that clients are required to attend. Obviously they're welcome to visit their home at any time. We do request that they schedule that with a member of our staff so that someone can be there, mostly just for safety reasons. It's an active job. They're excited to go see it and they walk away going to the hospital—that's not a good thing for anybody. So we would love to be there just to help walk through your home and show you the progress and stuff, but having a member of our team there is definitely important.
But we do offer a couple of really cool opportunities, some touchpoints for clients to contribute to the building of their new home. Those are the handprints in the foundation. We'll do that in the back patio on concrete pour day. They can come and put handprints—"2026, we were here"—whatever they want to put there. And then the other one is writing on the walls. Right before we do insulation and drywall, we can have them come and write on the walls if they want to leave notes to future homeowners that remodel. If they want to write scripture or let the kids draw on their bedroom floor or on the walls.
**Matt:** I remember doing that when I was a kid, too. There's probably 14 houses, I'm going to guess, around this country that probably have your color crayon underneath the flooring. Somebody tears up the flooring and they've got 5-year-old art on the subfloor. It's how we got you excited about moving again: "Go pick your new room and color your rug on the floor." And I know your handprints are in concrete.
**Brent:** Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And then we also have a new option for people that came out of one of our other podcast episodes. Maybe our team can post which podcast episode number that is so people can reference back to it.
**Jeannie:** Put that in the bottom, just a little bottom rocker with "reference episode whatever that was."
**Brent:** Pretty neat. But again, something that you did in a previous home of ours—actually my first home—leaving a time capsule in the wall. Really cool podcast episode. We went back and talked with people that purchased the home and found the time capsule later. Check it out if you're interested. But we let our clients do that same thing—leave a little time capsule in the wall and we can help them place that. If they want to put it in a wall and cover it with drywall, or if you think that you're going to live in that home forever and you just want to go back someday and see how your family's changed over time, we can help you hide it somewhere in the attic where it's still accessible to you without having to completely remodel your home. We're happy to help you figure that out on-site.
But just a couple of options to get people involved in the build, get them excited about what's going on. And then after we do all of those things and continue the updates, the next step as far as the client's concerned is really their Welcome Home Orientation.
**Jeannie:** And before we move on to step five, I just wanted to ask you to talk just a little bit about—you mentioned the weekly updates—but in terms of the schedule, how can people kind of know what's coming up next on their house?
**Brent:** Yeah. So, we have phase schedules in the app. So they can go in and see what phase of construction their home is in right now. And the reason that we set it up as phases is because construction is an ever-changing process. Sometimes it doesn't have to be A, then B, then C. Sometimes you can rearrange those letters to make things work. So if, say, a plumber is delayed on another project and can't get out to start, I can bring in the electricians and get them working on some things to keep something going.
So we just put it in phases. So in that example, the phase would be mechanical rough-ins. And so during that time period, you can expect that you will see plumbers, electricians, low-voltage contractors, and HVAC contractors. But they might not be there in any specific order based on scheduling. But it's just a really good way to kind of keep up with what stage you're at. "Oh look, we're finishing up mechanicals and we're about to be moving into insulation and drywall and now the home's really going to start to take shape." So they can be excited about what's coming up. So, we're not hiding the schedule from them completely. We're just not getting into the details in that schedule because really the details don't matter as long as your home is progressing.
**Jeannie:** Yes. And again, I think it's about setting the right expectation. We should be about "here" by about "this time," but saying the plumber will be here Tuesday and you happen to drive by and there's no plumber, that feels like a major disappointment. And it feels like, "Oh gosh, we're behind schedule now." And so the phase system just helps you to stay informed but not "ride the roller coaster" because it's just our job to manage all of that.
**Brent:** Well, and in that phase schedule we've already built in time for things like weather delays or—obviously the area that we build in, our weather changes by the hour sometimes. Yesterday it was 70 degrees, today it's 40. So you really never know what you're going to get. And so if you drive by and you don't see the plumber there that day, we've already got some time built in. Our goal is to complete the phase by the end of the phase in the schedule, not necessarily have somebody there every single day because things do happen. We do get delays or people's vehicles break down on their way to work, or whatever, and it delays that process. But we've already accounted for a lot of those things.
**Jeannie:** Yeah. And before we move on to step five, I just want to say that, speaking of setting the right expectations, we have an extremely detailed homeowner guide that also walks through this process step-by-step. And it really helps homeowners answer a lot of questions that people have upfront and helps them to understand the process as we go along.
I'm thinking about it right now because there is a page in there called "The Emotional Roller Coaster." And it is just a very jagged up-and-down graph with emojis pasted all over it because we acknowledge that building a home is a very emotional process. And we know that some days you're flying high and some days it's a "snoozefest" when you're waiting for the rough trades to be done or the drywall to be complete, and then things get really exciting again right before it feels like nothing is happening again. And we know the process and we recognize those pain points and we acknowledge that they exist. And so we want you to know that that's normal. And so, again, just setting all those expectations upfront just helps people to feel a little bit more confident in the process. So we've done all the work. We're several months into the process and now it is time to move into step five.
**Brent:** Yeah. Do you want to take it?
**Jeannie:** Uh well step five is a little bit of everybody. Just run with it.
**Brent:** Yeah. So, step five is our Celebration Walk. So, we will alert, or your salesperson will alert, the homeowner about 30 days before we're ready to close. And that is a really important distinction because a lot of people start to anticipate move-in time, but we can run into some really late-game issues, like if we are in a "weather phase" right now. Well, we can't get a CO \[Certificate of Occupancy\] without landscaping. Or we can't get a CO without getting the driveway put in. And so, there's a lot of things that can go really quickly at the end or can be a bit of a hang-up at the end. And so it really is important for people to wait for that 30-day notice to schedule renters to move into their investment property, or schedule short-term renters to come enjoy the vacation property that they built, or to plan their own move-in and their housewarming party on July 3rd. And we know you're excited and we're so excited for you, but we also need you to acknowledge that you've got to wait to lock your interest rate until that 30-day mark when we give you that notice. Then you're free to start setting up all those things. And you know, it just has to be that way because until that notice, there is still a small chance that the date could get pushed by a day or a week.
Absolutely. And it's also important to note that if a client stops by their home during that 30-day period, they might think that it looks done. "Why can't I move in? It looks done." But that's the time period that we are doing all of the small detailed finish work, all of the touch-ups, and we're pumped that they think it looks done, but we don't think it looks done yet.
**Matt:** Exactly. Well, and we want to complete all of those things before they move in because our trades do not want to have coffee with them. And they don't want to have coffee with the trades. It's not fun for anyone. You're at 7 a.m. in your robe and you've got somebody coming to do touch-up paint because the builder didn't finish the home before you move in. That's not a fun experience for anyone.
**Jeannie:** Well, and we've been in the position before, too, where our bleeding heart says, "Oh gosh, you gave your notice and you have to be out." And so, we're like, "Okay, fine. We'll break our own policy just this once." And we're not doing the homeowner a service when we do that because they're eager and they're thankful and they're relieved in the moment, but then they're irritated and frustrated when their new couch is in place and the painters are pushing it around to get that one little spot. And it's just not a scenario that we want to put anyone in.
**Brent:** Yep. Absolutely. And another reason that we call it the Homeowner Orientation and not like a "final punch walk" because we have already done the final punch. We don't believe in delivering halfway completed or 98% completed homes. When the homeowner gets there to move in, it's finished and they're actually able to move in. And that's the process that we've set up. And so that's where that 30 days comes in. It might look like, "Oh, I could move in today," but now we're doing those final detail things, getting the home ready for you to move in, so that we're not doing them later.
**Jeannie:** Yeah. And the orientation walk is the time for the homeowner to learn everything there is to know about their new house.
**Brent:** Yes. Absolutely. Which, amazingly enough, there's a lot. I mean, you have things from, "Where's the plumbing shut-off for the main water?" and "How do you operate the water heater?" Everything is technology these days, too. And one of the things we didn't even talk about is we offer a swimming pool option. That can be added right into the price of your house. So, now you can include that in your financing, but now you have to know how to operate that. If you have never had a pool before, or even if you have, that technology changes all the time, so there's just a lot to learn in that process.
**Jeannie:** Absolutely. Yeah. So we do walk our homeowners very extensively through every room of the house, really, and everything that's in there so that they know how to live well once they move in.
So that really is the full process with Trace Water Homes. It sounded like a lot because we broke the steps down into very, very detailed pieces in the podcast, but that was intentional so people know all the things that go on in the background. But the simplicity of it for the homeowner themselves really is: secure the lot, secure the financing, choose your plan and finishes, let us do the work, and welcome home.
**Brent:** There you go. Absolutely easy. And I think if I were to say anything to anyone watching, it would just be that, you know, look at all of the work that we've put into this so that you don't have to. It does sound like a lot, but it's a lot for us. It's not a lot for the client. It's our job. And we love it, honestly. And we have put in so much thought so that it isn't a lot of work for the client.
**Jeannie:** So, well, anything else, Matt, from you?
**Matt:** I have nothing. I think we covered everything in great detail.
**Jeannie:** All right. Well, we thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of our podcast here at Trace Water Homes. Again, I'm Jeannie, Matt, and Brent, and we've enjoyed sharing this information with you today. If you'd like more information on Trace Water Homes, please go to tracewaterhomes.com. And we look forward to seeing you next time.