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Real Talk with Sterling Real Estate Group is your go-to resource for all things real estate. In our episodes, we break down the latest market trends, share insider tips, and provide expert insights to empower your property journey. Whether you're buying, selling, building, or investing, we're here to help you navigate the dynamic world of real estate in New York's Capital Region and beyond. If you have any questions or topics you’d like us to cover in a future episode, we’d love to hear from you! Reach out to us at info@sterling518.com.
Lisa Licata (00:36)
Hi, good morning and welcome to Real Talk with Sterling Real Estate Group. And I'm very excited today to have my friend, Dave DePaulo from Bella Home Builders. And today we're gonna be pulling back the curtain and talking about what really happens in new construction. Welcome, Dave. Well, welcome. I'm glad to be here, at least I appreciate you asking me to be here. Yeah. Looking forward to it. So I gotta say, we go way back. Way back. Yes we do. I think the first time I met you was when you did your first showcase of homes.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Like 20, probably 22 years ago. That's a long time. It's a long time. That's a long time. You haven't changed a bit. Yeah, neither have you. We keep the same. We look young as ever. That's right. So yeah, thank you so much. I know you're busy and take a lot of time out of your day to do this. So I appreciate it and appreciate you. So let's jump into it. For anyone who hasn't met you, tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into new construction. Well, out of college, I,
got a job as an insurance agent, did pretty well for a few years and got bored, started making some money. I was single. So I banked all the money and I decided to buy land. I'm Italian, so you have to buy land. So I bought land and I decided to build one house and one house ran into two houses, which ran into three houses and now we've done over 400 houses or so. Yeah, beautiful. Beautiful homes. We do mostly custom, as you know, but we do have a semi-custom product that's been very, very successful as well.
Right, yeah, some people that, I mean, a lot of people like to go the custom route when they're building with you. And especially with your eye and your detail and looking at the floor plans and everything. But some people just don't have it in them, right, to do a custom plan. So your semi-custom actually helps people out a lot. Yeah, in the semi-custom, we let them pick out as much as they want. But it is more structured where it's easier because you don't have so many, as many choices.
Right, right. That can get overwhelming sometimes. Yeah, it can be. So tell me, what's the part of new construction, the process, that surprises buyers the most? And I'm sure you've got a few of those. Yeah, I would say timing, timing and length of time and number of decisions they have to make. But timing, I think, is the biggest one. Time flies, while you're building the house and so many things can affect
the finish date, the date that we get our certificate of occupancy, it's from weather to availability of products. Supply and demand, Exactly. And then we only use certain vendors, so I'm not going to go hire a new framer just because I'm busy, because I don't know how good they are. Right. And so I have two framing crews, and so we can start a house every week and half if we have to. But three weeks is what it usually takes, roughly to...
frame of house. So just things can take a while to get done. I think clients sometimes lose focus of that. then some clients don't like to be pushed. We have to push them a little bit to keep them on track. And sometimes they don't like to be pushed. So we don't. And then they get really upset at the end because their house is always, you know, it's a little bit later. And I know it's hard, even though you say upfront and depending on the size of the house. I mean, I've seen some of the
Custom homes you built, those don't take 12 months. I know there's a longer amount of time and just even the selections, right? So if they're kind of taking their time or they can't decide is obviously gonna be a huge factor in the timing of the home. Yeah, what really helps is we use the same vendors. I've known you for over 20 years and some of my vendors I've known for 20 years too. We don't like to switch. So our vendors know our style and what I like, what I'll accept, what I won't
accept. I'm kind of picky. You should be. I won't try something brand new out, generally, on someone else's house. You do it on your own? Well, yeah. I mean, research it a lot first. so we try to keep our quality super high, which I think it is. we don't try out new vendors. I have a great relationship with most of all of our vendors. And I think that's one of our strong points of our company is that our clients love our vendors as well. They're treated well. And our vendors are extremely
intelligent and, successful. very good. Yeah, it's important because, you know, I've been through so many of your houses and the quality of work. It's just top notch. And even when you see people come through for showcase, they're just wowed by everything you do. I remember back in the day in your showcase houses, you would always have one room, one of the kids rooms that you would you personally write would build something unique, the race car bed.
I think you did a, I don't want to say a dollhouse, but. Yeah, we did a bunch of beds. We did the truck bed, which was like a race car room, because we had toolboxes as dressers. I just didn't just do the bed. I made the whole room. The whole, yeah. I did it myself. I think we did a Chris Craft boat once. That was really cool.
Was there one with a slide, a girls room that had a slide? So the girls room, we did a Cinderella carriage, which I built from scratch, which was crazy. I mean, I have pictures of me welding out in my garage, you know, two o'clock in the morning when I could do it, and shorts and a tank top in middle of winter. But I really enjoy doing that. And we've done about four or five of those. We did an airplane once. Yeah, yeah. So we do theme rooms like that. It's pretty neat when you can do it.
Yeah, I mean just I mean Dave that the wow people love that. people love it. Yeah, think you did a dog house one time. We did a dog. Yeah, it was a fundraiser I didn't live in it for long. Yeah, like let me back in the house. we did a The doll house were play houses. Okay were play houses. There were like two stories And um, we had a fireplace and one running water. yeah, and we donated that one was cool. We donated to the
to the hospital and it raised money for the children's section of the hospital and it went for like 30,000. We did three of those. They were cool. And they were all handmade mahogany windows and real, it was a real house to scale. nothing was, we made the doors, the windows. You've seen it. goodness. You know, it was so long ago. know, like I. Chimney. Yeah. And then the dog house we did, I decided to do a cool dog house. It was real stone, like not fake stone, full-sized boulders.
had a shake roof on it, had running water. For the doghouse. I mean, of course it had to. Electricity in case you want to heat it up a bit. Riggy ended up buying that and we had a crane it over her house in Lake George. No way. Oh yeah, it was crazy. You got to have pictures of these. I do. I need to see some of these. I definitely have to see some of those. I know we just got off track a little bit, but that's good. I want people to know more about you, Dave.
Yeah, I mean I'm kind of an artsy guy. I design all the houses that you've seen I've always drawn. I start drawing those and you know have an eye for certain things. You have to make your customer happy to work within what they want to do. But I think that's the part I enjoy the most is I actually draw my own houses on paper, blank paper, and then I give them to my draftsman who's wonderful and then he puts it into CAD and makes it scalable so that we can really get to work on can really see it.
So when, tell me why, I know you personally, you design the homes, but you also like to name them. yeah. What's the inspiration that you get when you're trying to come up with a name? Yeah, I just don't want to name them boring names like everybody, well I say, like you see a lot. so I went with Italian names. You did. And I always use, not just Italian names, but names that mean something, like harmony or sunshine or.
If they have a view, it'd be vista, means view in Italian. So I try to name the house for the feeling I get from the house. I don't speak fluent Italian. So I'll name the house and two years later... Yeah, yeah. I mean, I know some good words too. But I'll name the house. What's funny is I'll name the house an Italian name and four years later I'll only remember what part of it and I to look it up again. But it always has something to do with the client.
or the setting or the feeling, but it's always inspirational with sort of a mental warmth built into it, something that is easy, warm home, family, stuff like that. That's nice. yeah. A house is the most expensive thing a person's ever gonna buy, right? So it's an extremely important decision to make, and it's a very emotional decision to make. So you can't mess around with that with people.
you can't really, you have to treat them a certain way and their money is so important to them that you can't just ruin it. And I want my clients, 99 % of them do, is when they open the front door, I want them to love the house and have a tear in their eye. I don't want them going to their house and saying, you know, I wish they did that or I wish they went to a different builder. That to me would be a nightmare. Yeah, you want them happy all the way through the process, which they are. Everybody wants to be happy. Yeah, yeah, of course. If you could give buyers one piece of advice before they start building.
What would it be? One piece, now you may need two, or three, or 10, because building is a big undertaking. It's not. I mean, most of our buyers are very educated, and they know what they're doing. I think what's really unique about it is how they treat the subs, and how they treat the situation. For example, built a guy, his name is Dave Dowling. I built him a house.
And he actually called me and asked me if he could sweep it out once in a while. Normally you don't want people at the house. It was on his land too. So I said, sure, Dave, just be careful. So then he called me another time and he goes, hey, can I put a cooler out for the guys? As long as it doesn't have beer in it So he did that. And then he called me goes, hey, can I put a snack bar out? So every day he'd go there. His wife had passed away, so he was lonely too. He would go there, sweep the place up.
stock it with Gatorade, all healthy stuff, Gatorades and all that. Then he had a big box of all the snacks and some healthy, some chips and stuff like that. Let me tell you, my subs wanted to go to that job. And they wanted to make sure they did the best job they could possibly do because he was so polite. He didn't say anything negative to them. If he had a question, I always tell people, please, you can go there, but you need to talk to me. Because sometimes when you talk to the sub, it's...
the translation that when it gets to me, it's different. Exactly. So and my subs know the same thing. They're there to do their job and not to make decisions. So but my subs really appreciated that. And it made it made the whole build have just a different feel. And I've had lots of clients do nice things, lots of cookies, coffees, really, right. Coffee in the winter and stuff like that. Cold drink in the summer.
No, you don't have to do it as a client, but let me tell you, I mean, those guys couldn't wait to get to that house. It was past Queensbury, so wasn't around a corner for us. They loved it. They absolutely loved working for the guy, and I have never gotten a call back from them either for quality. Most of our homes, we don't have a maintenance company anyway. We build them, like you said, the quality is great. Dave Dowling was one of my nicest clients.
I'll give you the opposite as well. It's nice to have like the opposite. We have an I can't use a name. No, no. But in one case, I was heading to the house and I met the client there. They got there before me. When I walked in, I could hear the client was a little upset and they went over and they unplugged the contractor's radio. ⁓ no. They took his coffees and dumped them outside. That's probably the wrong thing to do. Yeah. That contractor didn't want to go back.
And a few of the contractors had issues and I used to have to have to, you know, motivate them to go back to get the job done. They didn't appreciate that, you know. And the other thing that this one client did too is also is, you know, some people have a habit of just saying the negatives, right. They would go there and talk about the other contractors. You know, like, he didn't do this. Like, nothing to do with them at all.
Yeah, so I think the clients will have a better time if they're happy and positive as well. you know, just there's always going to be issues in building the home, especially the bigger, the more cost of them. There's always going to be challenges and...
you know, issues that you're gonna have to work out and get around. You know, stay optimistic, trust the, if you hired the builder, you have to trust them. You have to have trust. If there's no trust, you're gonna go through the whole thing with a negative mind frame and everything that happens, you're gonna think was done on purpose. So 99 % of all the builders in this area are great. You trust them. If you hired them, it's time to trust them. The decision,
of trust should happen before you hire your contractor. Exactly. Not after. Not after. Yeah, not during. Yeah, because it's just not going to be good. I mean, do your due diligence and follow your contract. But I think that's one of the things, I've doing it now almost 30 years, that's one of the things that makes me the happiest. I would rather have my customers give my vendor something at the job site than bring it to me. Right.
I don't need it. They're there. They're there working. They're cutting their fingers and falling down. And all kinds of elements. Working 10 below zero. They appreciate it. They really do. And kindness goes a long way, especially nowadays, right? It goes a very, very long way. And there's no reason not to be kind, as far as my eyes. And those customers, you remember. You remember those customers.
my framers and people like see them out in public somewhere, they're going to remember. Yeah, a lot of the houses I build are kind of neat and unique. Yeah. yeah. So a lot of my framer, I'll use the framer a lot, but my framer or tile guy they'll actually ask if they can come see the house when it's done because they have so much pride. And they'll take their families there and drive by. Not every house ends up in the showcase. So a lot of times they have a good rapport with the client.
I've had clients, I just built Tony Hizopis' house from Hippos. wow, okay. Another great client. Yeah. A great client. He did the same thing. He took care of the vendors all he could. At the end, he kept telling us he was gonna have a party for everybody, and he did. He had a... A thank you? my God. The food was amazing. wow. Couldn't eat half the food. And everybody that worked at his house was invited to go to his house about three or four months once they moved in. Wow. So that was kind of nice too. It does help.
It does help. And when you're building a custom home, not everything's, I can't, you cannot sit there and tell me every build or you've had a build that was 100%. Something's always got to pop up. without question. I mean, yeah. Just kind of work through it instead of getting all worked up because it very well could be a very easy solution that a buyer may not know. Right. Excuse me. As you know, my custom homes are one off. Once I design them, I'll never build them again. Because I promised my client that that helps their
you know, that helps their asset and it's worth it. I've never built a house that hasn't sold for more or appraised for more the very next day. So I think building them all differently helps the client with their own investment as well. Right. Right. And keeps you unique and that's why people come to you. Right. And then when they're all unique, like you said, you're going to run into issues that don't line up. Right. You know, something's not going to work or line up and we have to go back and adjust it and get it to work. And they always do.
Hopefully. Yes, hopefully. You'll find a solution one way or another, Dave. have to, right? I've torn off entire second stories of homes, you know, because it was the right thing to do. ⁓ wow. Don't like to talk about that. I know, I know, but. But I do, I did, you know, and the client loved me and said, when it was all done, he said, you know, his contract read exactly what I was supposed to do, but I knew it wasn't right. I knew it was supposed to be a cathedral ceiling.
but all through the design and the plans, it was a flat ceiling. And he watched it go up. then, very before we sheetrocked it, he called me and goes, hey, when are you gonna take down those braces? Well, those aren't braces. That's the bottom of your truss. So I knew it was supposed to be that way. So we tore the whole second story of the house off, threw it a dumpster and rebuilt it. And the fellow has sent me five clients since then, because he knew it was the right thing to do. He was not...
He didn't have a leg to stand on because he had a contract, a set of plans that he initialed and signed, but I knew it wasn't right. Right. So took care of did the right thing. You have to. Yeah. that's why they keep coming back to you. It's awesome. Let's get into, let's talk a little bit about upgrades. Which upgrades that, and I don't want to say upgrades because your homes are all custom. They're not, you know, like a just a regular production house and then people are putting upgrades. So when people are
making selections, what is worth it long term? What do you think are things that they should consider that would be long term that may not date itself? Let me give you a general answer on that first. I think the most important thing to do is what you can't do later, or which is cost on it's just too expensive to do something later, like especially if you have to put something in and rip it out.
I'm going to make up a situation. I've never done this, but let's say you put a staircase in and it has sheetrock walls and you always wanted railings. You can absolutely tear that out or even before you tear it out, maybe the walls are there. You have to now cut the sheetrock out and put in the balusters and the new post and the handrail. So if you can think ahead more and try to do it in the right order, then your change orders won't be as expensive.
So the best change order to do is the one that you really want and that it's harder to do later like a swimming pool You can do that later, No, it rough up the grass a bit, but that's nothing that's easy. It needs to be fixed. so certain certain change orders That you like you have a hard time doing later. I can tell you the biggest change orders are generally always kitchen cabinets Really? Yeah, that's always because cabinets are probably the most expensive. Yeah portion of the house, you know, I mean
very expensive cabinets. Well, you get into designing a kitchen. Yeah, they're one-off kitchens. Yeah, I mean, the cabinets can be pretty expensive, especially if you add a lot of glass. And now with all the crazy pull-outs they have, they become expensive. But people want that, and they'll add it later, which is not as cost-effective because you're going to throw away something you already bought. Right. So I would say do what you can do ahead of time and maybe do the outside of the house, like the patio or the...
Pools are over. You can't buy a pool for less than $120,000 now. Yeah, I always tell people hey, know I'd rather have you see you spend the money on the house and Then you can always do the pool in year or two later to get your bonus or a couple more years of work And what about basements, you know if they think if they're not ready to finish the basement now, what should they be doing? Definitely run the rough in you know, you want to rough in the plumbing rough in electrical We we insulate our two by four. Yeah, all our walls on the outside. Anyway, that's
Like that's not an upgrade for me. And we also start with a nine foot basement. that's make sure you do at least a nine foot basement. If you plan on finishing. Yeah. Because the customers don't realize there's beams that stick down. even bigger than beam is the trunk lines for the air conditioning. And that can really come down lower. Yeah. So but we do a nine foot basement. And I think the cost that you'll pay for the extra foot is well worth it when you do a basement. Yeah. And doing it up. Yeah. And I think basements are we love our basements here in the north. I'm in a builder 20 group with
16 builders in the country and they laugh every time I say basement. But they don't even know what that is, right? Yeah, everybody wants a basement here and everybody wants to put their theater down there or golf simulators. I was just going to say golf simulator. I'm doing two in one house right now. Really? Two golf simulators. Two golf simulators. Husband and wife or you just want to sell? No, husband and wife. That's great. That's great. I know, basements. We're going to touch base on your Builder 20 towards the end if we have time.
So we talked about what upgrades probably are not worth it, I think you mentioned, unless there's something... Not worth it. Or not worth the cost. But usually aren't worth the cost. I'm trying to think one offhand. I think if it doesn't give you the joy or usefulness of it, then it's not worth it. As far as what's not worth the cost, I don't really know. I think it's so...
that's such a personal, everybody's depending on the house, Yeah, everybody's different. I mean, again, like you've mentioned, it what's the best time to do the basement? And honestly, the best time to do the basement is when you're building a house. When you're building the house. If you can't afford it, which is common, right? Or you just don't want to spend all that money up front, which I totally understand, then do as much of the roughing as you mentioned. Get all that done. You still got to bring a lot of sheetrock through the door. And it can be a little messy and dusty. Yeah.
Years ago, you didn't have to put the big windows in. Yeah, your egress. I did because I knew most of my people were going to do it. We usually put two in now, but you only have to have one. And you know, they're four by four. Right. Yeah. So one, it's safe. Right. You can get out. And the most. the other thing is it brings in a ton of light and ventilation. So it doesn't. They don't smell like basements anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Because you can get a lot you know, circular ventilation there. knowing, depending on how big the house is, right, you may want.
two or three rooms in the basement, right? You'd have to have egress window. Yeah, I mean, think it through. I we design a house. This is interesting. When we design a house, which we design all our houses, we also do the basement because a lot of people do want to add the basement into it, or they'll do it years on. You don't want a pole in the middle of your room, right? Yeah. And you don't want stairs in the wrong area. And you want to make sure your furnace and hot water heater, they're nice to be centrally located, but you want to put them in a certain area that you can put a room around them.
And the other thing is think about storage. You have to have a common amount of storage and living area too. Most common basement that we do is a bathroom, a great room, family room, fun room, whatever, and a bedroom. And a bedroom. And then from that point on, there's theaters and golf simulators, pool rooms. And then all of a sudden you're like, there's no storage. Man caves. Man caves.
Yeah, we're doing a lot of art stuff now, which is... I love art. we've been building a lot of art rooms where people are doing art. A lot of ladies, yes. Your showcase house. Had one. Had the art room, yeah. I'm designing another one for a great guy and his wife, her art room is really large. I'm not sure what kind of art she does, but she was really adamant about the art room. Yeah. And then big showcase next year. I love the wrapping paper rooms. Those are so cool. I did one in Saratoga a long, long time ago. It was really neat. It's colorful.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we'll have one in the showcase I think next year. I just put you on the spot. know, yeah. just put you on the spot. Check, Dave is in, showcase. For Lisa, Lisa will definitely get a We'll start planning in January. Be like, hey, I know Dave's got a house in. We have some spectacular ones coming up. You know, the timing has to be right. Yeah, yeah. And the client has to understand that they're going to have lot of people. for the most part. 4,000 people through their house. Yeah, I mean, we make it clear that it's a fundraiser, right? And that goes a long way. That generally...
That usually sways them over to the yes part. Yeah. Yeah. We did. We just donated $66,000 from Showcase. Nice. And thank you, yeah, for participating. you It's not easy. You guys do it. It's a big, yeah, but the builder. How long you been doing that? You've been doing that a long time. I just hit my, well, I just finished my 20th year. Started when you were 13. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, so we start planning in January. I know. And it's the 30th year of Showcase. Wow.
I know so it's even more important that you're in for that. That's definitely the best home show around. I mean, it blows the other one away. Yeah. yeah. Yeah without yeah Tell me what buyer behaviors make the process smoother versus chaotic and we might have already kind of covered that earlier, but is there We talked about right selections trying to keep them on track with selections You can't push them, but sometimes you have to if they want to be in the house at a certain time
I think the builder has a lot to do with that. I mean, if he has a great process, and my process wasn't great 30 years ago. We built a great house 30 years ago, but my process has gotten much better. We have a lot of manuals and flow charts, and we call it a building Bible, wherever the house is at any given time tells the client where they need to be on their selection stuff.
relative to date, it's relative to where we are. Where you are, So we're digging, well then we're sheetrocking, we have to make sure the tile's picked out, know, something like that because especially today, it'll be in, it'll be out, it'll be out, it'll be in, and during COVID you couldn't get anything. Oh that was, you know, no rules for that. But you know, today we wanna make sure, the other thing I like, a good example is on tile, the person picks out the tile early. By the time we order, it could be discontinued, believe it or not. I hear that a lot.
So you have to make sure that you give the client, they don't know that, right? Right, right. And they're not happy when you call them the day before we need to tile and tell them, your tiles discontinued. That's our fault, right? That's not their fault. So we have to make sure that we're getting the tile and having it on site long before we need it. Right. So it's just keeping things organized, good communication, a really good project manager. Probably the most important position in the company is the project manager. Yeah.
And I have two great ones, been with me 25 years. That says a lot. 30 years. But he doesn't put up with much stuff. And we all know that. But he builds the highest quality house on the planet. I wouldn't do it without him. But it's important to make sure that you're organized and you have the right mind frame going forward. The client's really hardly ever wrong. I hate to say it.
I can't say they're never wrong, but for the most part, they're doing what they do for a living, and we do this as a living. So it's really my responsibility. I'm going to take the blame 99 % of the time and move on. But you still have to do what you need to do to make it right, no matter what it costs, no matter how long it takes, and just make it right for the client. Yeah. And you do that. I try to. A lot of people. Yeah, I try And I know you touched base a little bit on the warranty that
You don't really have a warranty program because nothing ever happens. I don't have a warranty truck. We have a spot on Buildertrend. We tell the clients because then it's date stamped and it's in writing. We should just tell each other and sometimes we would get lost in transition. But we have a Buildertrend. It's a Windows-based, cloud-based product. So we just have them go out. They have a leaky faucet. They just fill it out. We're there within a day or two. If it's an emergency, we go out right away.
No, I've never had a maintenance crew, I've had a maintenance agreement. I don't buy the insurance policy, I mean, I just fix it. And I don't really look at my contract and go, nope, it's two years and six weeks. I just fix it. If it's the right thing, I fix it. You do the right thing. When they're spending that much money in that. But when you build them right, honestly, when you take the time and build them right with good quality and you watch what you do, you shouldn't have a maintenance issue. Right. Right. And that's what sets you apart.
from a lot. I appreciate you saying that. hope it does. A of happy customers. So I was going to put it here. Without naming names, what's one story from the field that lives rent-free in your head? I'm not sure if we already covered that. Or is there one there that's... The story of Dave, again, with having the cooler, I mean, it meant a lot to him. It wasn't just throwing some old sodas in a thing. This guy really...
took time every day and thanked everybody and smiled when they came and smiled when they left. And I have people call me like, you gotta get more of those guys out there for clients. I'm like, hey, I would like them too. And everybody has that personality. You get that, right? Again, I think a lot of it comes down to trust.
clients or in any business. I just went to Dunkin' Donuts and got a drink. And you texted us to see if we wanted anything. I can't come here with my own, right? That wouldn't be friendly. I thank you. That was so sweet. I appreciate that. But it's just, it's the mental, it's a mental, where are you mentally in this whole thing? You had a rough time in the contract and you had a rough time designing the house and you had a rough time closing it and you're already...
don't trust the builder, which happens, right? In anything we do, buying a car, it's the same thing. It's not gonna go well the rest of the time. It's not just gonna magically change and get better. It's start in the beginning all the way through. I always say, go to the lumber yards, go to Curtis Lumber, ask them about the builder. They say, well, and it's probably not great. If they say he's the best, then he probably is pretty good. Ask attorneys that do real estate. Ask agents like you, and ask.
to find out who the last three houses he built and go see those people. Don't go with the realtor, go by yourself. When I send people to houses or people ask me, I go see some houses, I just go to a couple of the last houses I built and give the person their number. I don't go. I want them to be honest. I don't want them saying, I don't want them to be afraid to say anything because I'm there. And I always build with those people. Those people, I know, generally it's gonna be good.
Like I said, 99 % is pretty good. You can't keep everybody. Not everybody's always going to be 100 % happy. It just doesn't go that Right. I mean, that's just life. But for the most part, I mean, something always, always pops up. But there's something that you can't Yeah, it seems like after 30 years, it's a lot less. And it should be because we should be learning from every mistake we make. Back then, it was mistakes because we just didn't have the...
Process. The experience. The process along with the experience. If you have a great experience and a great process, then it should work well. All the way through yeah. There are a builders that have gone out of business in the best times. And if you can't make it in Saratoga or Colonie or Clifton Park, we have a great, great area. Yeah. Real estate's a great place to be and our economy's awesome here. When you see a builder going out of business,
And you hear about all the horrible things that have happened in last 20 years to this person. And the person that bought the house knows they're going to have an issue, but they buy it anyway. They buy it anyway. Two reasons. One, it's because it's cheaper than everybody else. And two, it's because it's in a location that they really like. Now, I understand the location. But if you're buying a house just because it's the least expensive one, just be careful. Doesn't mean it's the wrong one. Right. But I'd look into that builder to find out why he's less than everybody else. Yeah.
Do your research. You have to. And go to the neighborhood. If you're going to build in a neighborhood. Yep, drive around the neighborhood. If you have a dog, put him on a leash, park your car, and just keep walking. And people will come out and say hello to you. They'll talk to you. They'll tell you all about the whole neighborhood. Now you might not get some of the truth. Maybe that client don't want anybody building right next to them. Right. Right. But for the most part, you can tell. You walk your dog or your child. It's even good with children. Walk around.
Go a couple times. If it's a great neighborhood, people will come out of their doors and they'll greet you. Yeah, yeah, which is nice. We don't know this person. We're gonna go figure out who they are. They're also gonna tell you, like I know in my cases, people will say, hey, he's a great guy, you'll be fine. They wanna share their experience, because it's good. It's good.
Which is nice, because a lot of people don't share the good, they share the bad. That's right. Well, the thing about the bad is too, is you see somebody on the front lawn and you walk them by and they run in and close their door. you know, it's probably not good, you know. Don't want to note to self, don't want to live next door to them. Well, that's great. For anyone thinking about building right now, what's the big, the biggest piece of advice that you think you can give them? Or thinking about building.
And you probably covered that by the research of the builder. Yeah, I would say gut feeling, you know? Yeah. Gut feeling. Do your research referral. Get a referral from somebody that built with them. Just ask. Just don't be afraid to go somewhere where all the builders go. That's like Curtis Lumber to me. They're awesome. Yeah, because you do. yeah.
I do Anderson commercials, I do their commercials, I do a couple other commercials for some lighting companies. The guys that you see doing commercials are probably decent guys. They're honest. They're at least honest. So they have to be ethical and honest because for their spokesperson, they to That's a good sign. Be careful with people who are just starting off. I know I started off at one point too, but they don't have a track record. So just be a little careful with that. There's some great builders. Everybody had a start at some point.
But be careful with that because the guys that come and go are usually the ones that have the most issues. you want the ones that been around for the longest time. And then do your due diligence. I mean, with that and then also which way do you want your house to face? when I design houses with people, I sit down just like we are with a cup of coffee and I tell them, I'm going ask you some personal questions. And it's not that I'm nosy, but you know, do you have how many kids do you have? Do you plan on having more? Where do you drink your coffee? Where do you like to read your
Nobody reads a newspaper anymore, but they read it on their computer. So where do you do these things? Do you like the sunlight in the morning, or do you want it at the end of the day? Those are important when you're designing a house. Absolutely. So, and then which lot's right for you, issues like that. I had a client once, I just assumed everybody loves windows. I I'd build a whole house out of windows if I could. I love bringing the outside in and the inside out, and we bring real stone in and stuff like that. And so was designing a house for a great...
Great Dr. Alexander, great guy. He's an emergency room doctor and I had this beautiful 12 foot double sliding glass door with a big balcony on his bedroom, it on the second floor. And he called me up and he's like, he didn't want to hurt my feelings because I designed it. I'm like, this is awesome, this is beautiful. And he's like, well, you gotta take it out. I'm like, I can't take that, it's gorgeous. He's like, well, I work nights, so I sleep during the day.
and I'm an emergency room physician. It's a great idea, it really is Dave, but it's not gonna work for me. We'll get you some blackout currents. So that's a good example. like, well I have to have some windows in here to meet the light and egress requirements from New York State. He goes, well that's all I want. So that's what we did because it was right for him. right. that's good, that's a good story. All right, well Dave, do you have any other questions before we wrap up? Well, no, not at all, it was fun.
Yeah. I just thank you again for inviting me. Well, thank you for coming. Anytime. And I'm looking forward to next year's Showcase House. I bet you are. We've got that on record now. Yeah. Yeah. No pressure. So Dave, tell our viewers how they can get a hold of you. What's the best way? Well, they can get a hold of me by emailing me if they'd like at dave@bellahomebuildersinc.com Or they can call us at 518.
I have to look at the number because I don't know it by heart. don't call yourself. I don't. (518) 583-1833. And if anybody has a question, I mean, be more than happy. I don't... have any question about anything I'll answer if I could for them I'll help them out. And we'll make sure we have all your contact information in the show notes. And again, thank you so much. It's a pleasure. I want to get you back again. Let's think of another topic around new construction or anything that we can think of. So thank you so much.
And that wraps up our episode with Dave DePaulo from Bella Home Builders. Thank you.