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Episode 98: Matt and Taylor are joined by Jeff Houghton. Jeff is the Co-Founder of H&H Custom Homes & Okanagan Infill, from Kelowna, BC. Jeff has his Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) and his Real Estate Trading Services License, so he is well-versed in all things business and real estate related. Since 2008, the award-winning H&H Custom Homes has designed and built over 100 luxury homes throughout the Okanagan Valley. In 2019, they decided to expanded into the multifamily division, and Okanagan Infill was born under the H&H banner. Jeff's goal is to grow even more throughout the Okanagan by continuing to provide high quality homes and top-notch service.
Jeff is here to discuss: → The importance of his accounting background in his businesses and the evolution of his role, the types of projects taken on by H&H Homes & Okanagan Infill, and finding success by diversifying projects and market adaptability. → The realities of building at Big White, the cost & timeline when subdividing property, and how tariffs are impacting the housing development & homeowners. → The biggest mistake when building, where to put smart money in real estate right now, and embracing failure for success.
H&H Custom Homes Website: www.handhhomes.ca
H&H Custom Homes Instagram: @handhcustomhomes
Okanagan Infill Website: www.okanaganinfill.ca
Okanagan Infill Instagram: @okanaganinfill
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The Kelowna Real Estate Podcast is brought to you by Century 21 Assurance Realty, the gold standard in real estate. To learn more, visit: www.c21kelowna.ca
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Kelowna Real Estate Podcast: @kelownarealestate
Kelowna Real Estate Podcast YouTube: @KelownaRealEstatePodcast
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CONNECT WITH MATT
Matt Glen's Website: www.mattglen.ca
Matt Glen's Email: matt.glen@century21.ca
Matt Glen's Instagram: @mattglenrealestate
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CONNECT WITH TAYLOR
Taylor Atkinson's Website: www.venturemortgages.com
Taylor Atkinson's Email: taylor@venturemortgages.com
Taylor Atkinson's Instagram: @VentureMortgages
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome back to the Colonial RealEstate Podcast.
(00:01):
I'm your mortgage broker host,Taylor Atkinson.
And I'm your real estate agenthost, Matt Glenn.
What's shaking, Taylor?How was the run?
Yeah, my legs are shaking, man.
Run was good.
I doubt it, dude.
You're like the fittest guy I
know.
Yeah, we went down to Vancouver
this weekend.
I just did the BMO half, so not
the full one.
But man, what a beautiful race
course.
21K?
Yeah.
Yeah, it only took me six hours.
(00:21):
No. Yeah, it was an hour and 50.
So I was pretty happy.
I doubt it, happy.
That's pretty good.
Yeah.
Because I know the 10K, like you
kind of want to get under an hour.
So like more than double under two
hours.
That's pretty good.
Yeah.
And like Vancouver, like
Vancouver, man, you kind offorget.
We haven't been there in a while.
Like it's a gorgeous city.
We had a ton of fun.
Like took Leo to the women's
professional soccer team there.
(00:42):
The Rise was a great soccer game.
Did the aquarium.
Just yeah, it was cool to get out.
And you kind of forget what a bigcity feels like.
And then you come back to Coloniaand you're like.
a ton of It's tiny, but we'regetting there.
There's a couple big buildingsgoing up.
More by the second.
How are you guys doing?
Good.
I have not done any half marathons
or half marathons, but doing good.
(01:03):
Adjusting to life with two kids.
Going from one kid to two kids isan extraordinary difference.
It's not twice as hard.
It's at least five or six times as
hard.
Yeah.
In like six months, you'll forgetwhat one kid was like though.
You'll just, this will be the newnorm.
(01:24):
Oh, exactly.
Already like we're three months in
or whatever and it's alreadygetting to that point.
So yeah, just an adjustment, butit's been awesome.
Yeah.
It's not because either of the
kids are difficult either.
They just have different needs at
different times and yeah, it'sjust hard.
So, but it's been also extremelyrewarding.
also extremely rewarding.
Sweet.
Well, summertime's here.
So now it's just.
Naked baby time, you know, you letthem run around, no diapers and
(01:45):
just, yeah, that's good stuff.
Yeah, I like it.
Yeah, well, our guest also has twokids.
We were talking to Jeff Houghtonfrom H &H Homes, Okanagan Infill.
He's got a handful of arms of thebusiness, I guess.
He's building up at Big White,does infill projects, does custom
homes.
Does rental projects.
Does rental projects, yeah.
His background, he comes from like
an accountant.
type background.
(02:05):
So he really knows the numbers andknows how to make it work.
Another great guy from Boucherie.
I feel like half of our guests for
some reason have been fromBoucherie, which I just love.
But yeah, so I've known Jeff forages.
Yeah, he gets some wicked productsout there.
They've won a bunch of awards andI love this show.
It was great.
I did too.
It was just really great gettinghis perspective because he's just
(02:27):
in it all, right?Doing all the things real estate.
It was very good to talk to him.
He's a great guy.
Yeah, I think the takeaway here islike, Real estate, it's not just
one shoe fits all and you're goingto be successful if you just do
this one thing for the next 30years.
You have to adapt and pivotspecifically now.
And Jeff's obviously doing that.
Some things are profitable for a
few years and then it dries up andyou're on to the next until
(02:48):
government policy changes ortariffs or whatever happens.
But yeah, lots of good informationon this one.
So you guys are going to like it.
I'd agree with that 100%.
Also, we're out for Kelowna now.
Kelowna now.
By the time their show getsreleased, you have like, Eight
hours, maybe even less to vote forus.
So get on.
Yeah, we're not the best at
collecting votes, but it wouldmean a lot to us.
(03:09):
So we got nominated, but now yougot to vote for us to take the
gold home.
Best podcast in Kelowna.
in Kelowna.
Last year we won bronze.
So we really like the gold.
Yeah.
Or silver, whatever.
I'll take any step up.
Or bronze, man.
Bronze is pretty cool.
Yeah.
But yeah, it's kind of a tricky
one to vote.
So you got to go on Kelowna now
and then scroll down to media andbest podcast.
(03:31):
So yeah, I appreciate the supporton that one, guys.
Yeah.
Thank you very much.
Thanks for last year too.
for last year too.
Yeah.
This episode, like every episode
is sponsored by Century 21Assurance Realty.
Brookridge in Okanagan.
We're everywhere in all the cities
in the interior.
We're looking for agents, looking
for clients, buyers, sellers.
If you're one of those, give us a
call.
I'd love to talk to you.
See if we can work out for eachother.
(03:54):
Enjoy the show.
Okay, Jeff Houghton from H &H
Homes.
How's it going, man?
Hey, thank you for having me,guys.
Appreciate it.
it. So we just like to start our
show with what's your perfectFriday look like?
Other than, you know, you and Irunning into each other at daycare
drop off.
What else do you do on Fridays?
You'll get to know me here inshort order.
get to know me here in shortorder.
(04:15):
I'm a pretty regimented anddisciplined person.
So normal Friday, I actually workout seven days a week, 5am during
the weekdays and 6am on theweekends.
And I don't really miss a day.
So good for you.
for you.
Nice.
And then typical guy workouts, alot of weightlifting and very
little stretching or cardio.
And I did realize like, even
though I'm in construction, about95 % of the time I'm in front of a
computer.
So I didn't get many steps in any
particular days.
I'm maybe three, four or 5 ,000
(04:35):
steps a day.
And I'd read a documentary on
these blue zones.
If you guys know what those are.
Yes, Yes, I had long life.
Yeah.
It was like a direct correlationbetween the average steps you take
each day and the longevity of yourlife.
was like a direct correlationbetween the average steps you take
each day and the longevity of yourlife.
(04:56):
I was like, man, I'm lifting allthese weights, but I better get my
steps in.
So I also, after lunch hour,
strategically, I do a walk, a 45-minute walk every day as well.
Nice.
And I'm in a flat area in the
lower mission, so I now do aweighted walk.
So a walk with 40 or 50 or 60pounds on my back.
with So that kind of helps thecardio, helps get me my steps in,
and then kind of gives me thatafternoon burst of energy that I
need from sitting in an office allday.
(05:17):
And it also helps you digest yourfood.
Nice.
I do the same thing.
I just slap my kids on my backthough.
How old are your kids?Two years and seven weeks.
We're all in the thick of it,right?
Yes.
Yes.
But yeah, we live in McKinley.
Hills everywhere.
And like every time I go for awalk, I have someone strapped to
me.
We're Yeah.
And then lately, as it might get akick into this, but I weigh 190.
So I'm trying to do 190 grams ofprotein per day.
(05:38):
I feel that's like on trend rightnow.
Yeah.
It's honestly like a full -time
job.
Because you only want to eat like
40 grams per meal.
So you've got to space it out to
like five meals.
So lots of beef, you've got of
beef, lots of eggs, and thenfruits and vegetables.
And I've pretty much cut alcoholto zero, carbs to zero.
I feel way better after cuttingout the carbs.
And like zero junk food.
So pretty regimented, pretty
(05:59):
routine.
And then in terms of just the
perfect Friday, as you guys knowwith young kids, they're long
weeks.
And sometimes the weekends are
busier.
So the perfect Friday is like,
it's probably to bed pretty early,like maybe a family barbecue and
get to bed and get ramped up forthe weekend.
Getting ready for your 6amworkout.
get to ready for your 6am workout.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And well, Hey, something on the
(06:20):
health side, not that this is ahealth show, but Dr. Rhonda
Patrick, she just.
got out her hundredth episode,
long episodes on podcasts.
Like she's like over two hours and
like very sophisticated, but a lotof research recently shown on
creatine for not just muscles, butlike brain bones, maybe
incorporate some of that.
But one interesting fact on that,
not to get really sidetracked, butthere is quite a bit of data to
show recovery on concussions andprevention on concussions.
(06:41):
Like that's how much it affectsthe brain.
Yeah.
brain.
Give it a listen.
Shout out to Dr. Rhonda Patrick.
Yes, you take creatine every dayand then collagen as well every
day.
Yes, you take creatine every day
and then collagen as well everyday.
Good source of collagen.
But creatine, you got to watch
out.
I think I gained like 16 pounds of
water weight when I originallyhopped on it.
(07:01):
You hold a lot more water.
That kind of peters off.
collagen.
Talking about work, I've known you
for a long time and I've alwaysknown that you've had H &H homes,
custom homes, mostly singlefamily.
Only recently, you know, I've seenOkanagan infill on the side of
your truck chatting to you a bitthis winter.
I see you're up at Big White aswell.
You're in a lot of different areasand assets.
Can you kind of touch over theumbrella of your company, your
(07:23):
building side?Yeah, I'd love to.
So H &H Homes actuallyincorporated that company in my
second year of university.
So I'm six.
Didn't really get on the toolsuntil I graduated in 2008, which
was an interesting time to start,right?
Yeah.
It was super deflated and super
depressed, but a good time tostart because I kind of got to
like handpick all the trades thatI wanted.
Everyone was slow.
Yeah.
(07:43):
So I got to build a really goodteam.
I'm still using like 90 % of thosetrades today, which is kind of
neat.
Nice.
But yeah, so the H &H customhomes, so that's single family
custom homes.
We do some spec homes as well.
So that's been going for 16 yearsand we've done about 120 homes.
And then we do renovations and wedo some like commercial leasehold
improvements as well.
(08:04):
Yeah, we've won renovation of the
year, home of the year and builderof the year as well.
So it's been a successful company.
But as you guys can speak to, you
can kind of see the trend,especially in Kelowna going toward
like densification, infillprojects.
So I had met a guy in 2019 thatwas really interested in getting
the infill going.
it's been So we started a company,
Okanagan Infill.
We're kind of niche.
(08:24):
So we do like two, three, fourplexes, but kind of on the higher
end side, kind of, you know,bigger square footage, higher end,
just stuff where you don't see alot of it in the Okanagan.
So we've kind of got that nicheproduct.
Are they stratified?Are you selling them off or is it
like a rental portfolio after?Yeah.
So in this company, they're allstratified and all sold off.
Okay.
Yeah.
And then I've got a separate, abig white development company
(08:48):
where we bought a chunk of land.
It's part of the Sundown Strata of
the big white.
So we bought some residual land.
So last year we built five units.
We built a single family and two
duplexes.
And then right now we're just
finishing off.
We're doing a fourplex.
And then we have a, we have apiece of property that is actually
touching the base of like thebullet chairlift.
So we own like a little piece ofproperty there too, which is
(09:08):
pretty exciting.
Yeah.
So we do the developing and thebuilding up there.
I also have a holding company.
We do purpose -built rentals.
So right now we're building apurpose -built rental duplex in
Lakeview Heights on CrestviewDrive with legal suites in the
basement.
So we'll build that and throw it
in the portfolio and keep it.
And then sometimes we'll find
really good buys on nicer olderhomes.
(09:29):
We'll do a renovation and putthose into the portfolio as well.
I think it's important todiversify, right?
Especially as it gets... slower.
So, you know, right now the
construction industry is a littlebit slower.
We'll see what happens with theinterest rates here, but when it's
slower, okay, we can just pivotand let's keep all our stuff busy.
Let's keep our guys busy.
We'll build this rental duplex
with legal suites, right?know, right That is awesome.
(09:49):
So like two huge takeaways thereis I think you get so many people,
not just this industry, but a lotof industries, but specifically
you see it more in this industry,giving advice that aren't.
really doing it themselves, likereal estate agents, mortgage
brokers, builders, whatever, thatdon't own their own home or
haven't built.
So I think it's really important
to have that.
experience so you can give proper
advice on it and point two likeyou said being able to pivot and
(10:12):
diversify again a lot of people inthe industry that will just sit
there and be like oh yeah timesare tough like you know i'm not
making money i gotta do layoffsbut if you have the ability to
adapt like you're doing bediversified like that's the only
way to succeed on it touching backto that like starting out in 08 it
was extremely slow like youcouldn't even put the keys into a
front door of a house and havesomeone just take the house right
(10:33):
like i think it took us 11 monthsto sell back to that like starting
out in 08 it was extremely slowlike you couldn't even put the
keys into a front door of a houseand have someone just take the
house right like i think it tookus 11 months to sell like the
first spec house that I built, youknow, kind of having survived
those times when it gets slow,like right now, like you've got a
(10:53):
full toolkit that you can use,right?
Like you got to cut back on yourexpenses.
You got to get creative.
You got to do other things.
So yeah, you seem like you havereally good composure again, like.
You know, it's normally a daycaredrop off.
I'm seeing you where it's like itis chaos.
But I imagine it's similar to abuild site.
So, you know, you're carryingyourself very well.
You know, talking about stressfultimes, you know, we could touch on
this a little bit like tariffs.
What do tariffs do for your
business right now?Obviously, like there's a lot of
uncertainty, a lot of unknown.
So we're not here to kind of give
advice like this podcast is goingto come out in a month from now.
So probably a lot is going tochange.
(11:14):
But what do you have going onright now that it's affecting?
Yeah, I think the first thing youguys said is we just don't know.
That's like the most importantthing to go over with Trump.
Obviously, he could decide thatall these tariffs are off tomorrow
and maybe the stock marketrebounds, you know, the 8 % that
it's gone down.
We don't know.
But right now, there's a lot ofpivoting in the supply chain.
So we're being forced to usedifferent materials just because
(11:35):
the price increases have gone upso quickly.
So any of you guys... that knowlike james hardy plank siding
which is a concrete based sidingthat's your lap siding you're
bored of bad and you see itliterally on 80 of the homes and
actually on our big white projectstoo they just raised last week
prices across the board by about25 and on an average home like on
a 3 000 square foot walkoutrancher that equates like 10 grand
probably 10 or 11 grand There'salso a Canadian company that
manufactures called LP SmartSides.
(11:55):
It's a similar product.
It's not concrete based.
Some people don't think it's quite
as good, but it's still a goodproduct.
So like everyone's pivoting overto them because they were
similarly priced to James Hardy.
But of course, then I just heard
the grapevine that those prices, Idon't know whether they can't keep
up with demand or that they'vejust decided that now they're
underpriced, but apparentlythey're going to do a huge price
increase as well.
(12:16):
You're just playing this game of
cat and mouse, you know, pivoting,but I don't know how much that's
going to work or how long to dothat.
Right.
how long to do that.
Right.
Like Matt and I spoke about that
before trying to be optimisticabout tariffs.
I mean, like this is such a greatopportunity for Canadian based
companies to go out and sell toother countries or buy internally
or even just other Canadians.
(12:37):
even just other Canadians.
Yeah, but this is a prime exampleof what happens, I guess, is they
don't have the supply to do that.
They need to increase costs on it,
or they just take advantage, notsaying LP is, but people are just
going to end up inherently doingthat if everything else goes up
with inflation.
Just putting the prices to market
(12:58):
rate.
Exactly, right?
Yeah, they can charge 20 % moreand probably still get 90 % of the
business, Exactly, right?Yeah, they can charge 20 % more
and probably still get 90 % of thebusiness, right?
Yeah.
I don't know what direction
they're going, but I think that'slike Trump's.
purpose of tariffs is to bring themanufacturing back.
I get that.
Actually, probably in the long
run, once everything settles down,it could be a really good thing
for their country.
(13:18):
Anyway, we would be forced to do
it as well, but there's going tobe a lot of growing pains in the
meantime, right?Like we're not set up to just
start manufacturing all thesethings tomorrow.
There's tariffs on, right?Well, yeah, it's like supply and
demand in real estate, right?There's not enough housing.
We've had this housing shortage.
This is a prime example of like,
Your cost directly has to go upand that has to be passed on to
(13:40):
the end user now.
Yeah.
I know there's cost plus fixed.
If you're in any current contracts
right now, what do you do?What does the end user homeowner,
what can they expect out of this?The honest answer is that right
now, honest answer is that rightnow, we don't know.
We're just going to patientlywait.
We'll probably wait for a coupleof weeks to see, okay, is Trump
going to repeal these?Are these here to stay?
And then, like I said, it's amatter of just checking with the
(14:01):
supply chain.
It's actually surprising.
It seems like in construction, alot of the stuff that we buy, it
seems to me we're going to beokay.
So far, I think Windows have goneup 7%.
We talked about the James Hardy.
A lot of appliances come from the
States.
You've got your Whirlpools, your
Frigidares, your KitchenAid.
I think that's from the States.
So we can probably pivot toEuropean and Chinese brands.
You can probably pivot to yourLGs.
(14:23):
Every house will have a Bertazzonirange.
house will have a Bertazzonirange.
Well, yeah.
Yeah, the honest sense is I don't
100 % know.
I think just each day we're
probably going to know more.
Yeah.
But it's definitely going tocreate more economic uncertainty.
And it's going to make more peopleprobably wait on the sidelines
even longer, right?So you're in such an interesting
position here because you'rebuilding new homes, spec homes,
(14:43):
custom homes, rental properties.
infill where's the smart money
going right now or where's thesmartest money if there is any
smart money do rental projectspencil spec homes pencil like how
does this infill projects work outlike what are your thoughts on
that where should we spend ourmoney i don't want to make this
too doom and gloom but yeah likespec houses don't want to make
this too doom and gloom but yeahlike spec houses Don't really
pencil the multifamily.
Like we just got approved.
(15:04):
This is a funny story.
So we've got a nineplex that we
designed in Lower Mission.
We're super pumped about it.
It takes a long time in the designphase.
So we don't need to start itimmediately.
But we're talking to the city ofKelowna doing our development
permit.
And there was 12 applications for
new builds.
And we were the only one of the 12
that we're actually going to buildand try to sell the thing.
(15:24):
The other 11 applications were allpurpose -built rentals.
Wow.
Yes, the smart money, as you
mentioned earlier, a lot of thestuff you see in town, especially
multifamily, you see the big woodframe structures like everywhere.
Yes.
And you know, if you're like me,
you're like, who's moving intothese things?
They're all the same squarefootage.
They're all the same design.
They all just look like square
boxes.
Like side note, note, but what are
(15:45):
all these things going to looklike in 10 to 20 years?
This is what I just cannot getover.
Great question.
That's all I'm going to say.
going to say.
They look pretty right now, but
like drive down Pandozzi off thehighway and there's like 20 old
apartment buildings that justlooks like.
They're never going to goanywhere.
And that's kind of like the maincorridor into the mission.
It's just going to look like thatfor eternity.
Maybe a little short -sighted, butyou know, when you look at
something more than like a 10, 20,30, 40, 60 plexes.
(16:07):
So CMHC, which is a governmentprogram, they will lend the
developer the money.
They'll lend you up to 95 % loan
to value.
And plus they'll amortize a
project for 40 to 50 years.
So like those projects pencil
because you can get your rentersin there.
Actually, you can even charge abuilder's fee within your cost,
right?So that's why you're just seeing a
ton of those projects going up intown, So ton of those projects
(16:29):
going up in town, right?Follow the money, follow the
incentive, and then you can seethe result, right?
Yeah.
up in town, right?
But yeah, in terms of spec houseis not great right now, unless
you're like 1 .1 and under, right?Is the GST break in now?
Is there zero GST?I think to a million right there.
a million right there.
Yeah.
And then the property purchase taxtoo.
I think there's a break on that aswell.
So yeah.
Yeah.
Kind of back to the question ofhow to make money.
Like nothing's going to makemoney, but in your infill company,
like, can we talk a little bitabout... how to subdivide.
(16:52):
Like if someone has a singlefamily home and they're like, you
know, I have equity here, I'msitting on a half acre.
I would love to do something withthis and make a bit of cash and to
densify and, you know, add unitslike the city wants to do high
level timeframe costs.
Like if it's on a flat piece of
land, do you guys do much of that?Like, how does that look?
(17:12):
Yeah, so I'll qualify.
I have a right -hand man in the
Okanagan infel that he loveszoning.
He loves dealing with the city.
He loves subdivisions and
stratification.
So he's my guy for that.
But I have a really good example.
We had a client with a house on
Bonju in Lower Mission.
Beautiful lot, beautiful street,
older area.
His house was like shoved off to
the side of a really big lot.
And so we ended up just lopping
off a 40 -foot wide by 100 -footdeep lot right off his side yard.
(17:35):
Oh, nice.
Pretty quick, simple, easy
subdivision process.
So realistically, you can do it
with a builder or in his case, hehad already had the process
started when we were talking tohim.
But you get a civil engineer and asurveyor is kind of how it starts.
And, you know, you've got to bringin new services and utilities.
You get your property lines, makesure that you meet all the city
requirements.
The civil engineer will do that.
Make sure you can build a house ona new piece of property.
(17:57):
And then you just start anapplication with the city.
So very generally, it takes aboutsix to nine months.
to subdivide.
And I would say 140 to 170 ,000
type thing is the costs kind ofall in with your engineering, your
utility upgrades, the city DCCs,et cetera.
It was super cool because he hadan older, it was a really cute
home.
It was well kept, but he lived in
the home.
We built a brand new house beside
him.
They built it all custom.
(18:18):
And then he moved into the customhome and then sold the old home.
And I think he did really well.
Funnily enough, the value of his
old home, I don't think went downat all because he had this
awkward, huge side yard with likethis big tree on it.
It wasn't serving any purpose.
So when he lopped it off, we
fenced his other yard, like hisrear yard.
And I actually think the propertyis like more valuable without all
the added land.
(18:39):
Yeah, that is a good point.
Like you generally don't seevalues decrease.
that much when you're subdividingthat.
To your knowledge, do you know anyprograms other than just tapping
into your own equity?Like how does somebody come up
with 140 to 170 grand tosubdivide?
Like knowing there's profit on theother side of that, but that's a
pretty big barrier to entry.
Are there any companies that kind
of help out with that or programs?Well, shouldn't that be a question
(19:01):
for you?Yeah.
Yeah.
No, fair enough.
fair enough.
Matt, I teed myself up well there.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
So if you call me directly, I'llbe JV in these.
Well, it was kind of a plug to saylike I personally feel like that's
a missed opportunity forgovernment funding.
Like if we're coming out with allthese other, you know, multifamily
stuff, like why are we notinvesting more on single family?
(19:22):
Like I see that area of themarket.
You know, you said around thatmillion dollar 1 .1 in the
Okanagan.
If no one's penciling these to
build a single family home, what'sgoing to happen in five years when
everyone wants a single familyhome?
They're just going to become more.
They're you know, expensive to
turn it around.
Like, would there be any programs
that you would suggest or like,you know, if we're speaking
directly to the government, like,Hey, can we fund some of these
(19:42):
with similar style of financingprograms that we're doing with
multifamily?Yeah.
I don't know if I can speak muchto that, but you know, a lot of
these homeowners, they've been inthe house 30, 40, 50 years.
They have an insane amount ofequity in the property in the
house.
So typically I'm guessing in this
homeowners.
instance, that was what happened.
Just had an insane amount ofequity, easy to go to your bank
and say, listen, this is what Iwant to do.
(20:04):
You get a construction mortgage,you know, you probably finance
maybe a line of credit for thesubdivision process, and then you
can get a construction loan forthe rest.
But yeah, in terms of otheravenues, I don't think the
government circle into that yet.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I mean, we talked to the city
previously and we're going to haveBrian Smith back on shortly, but
like they've commented, like DCCsare just like non -negotiable, but
(20:24):
that was kind of the pitch waslike, well, why don't you do DCCs
at the end?You know, like why are we forcing
homeowners and developers to payfor these costs up front when they
just don't have the money for it?But if you allow that to be paid
out at the end of the project, youknow, there's built in equity.
right?Like, you know, it's a secured
asset.
(20:45):
Yeah.
So for big white, like justselfishly, I'm curious, how's
building going up there?Like, is it still active in terms
of like people want properties atbig white?
Is it growing?Why'd you guys move to big white,
I guess, or expand to big white?it's a Our best friends were
thinking about buying up there andthen we were thinking about
buying.
So that's kind of how it started.
And we were just looking atpotentially buying an older unit.
(21:06):
And, you know, maybe I would do aquick renovation and we would
split it.
The idea being that, like, I think
it's great to be at Big Whitetwice a month, but I don't want to
be up there every single weekend.
And neither do they.
So it's like, hey, we can splitall the costs.
We trust each other to take careof this unit equally.
So we started looking, couldn'tquite find anything that we
wanted.
Then we kind of started to
consider to build.
And then this chunk of land came
(21:27):
up.
So that's kind of how we got.
invested.
And we kind of just hopped on it
right away.
So Sundance is like one of the
best locations, ski in, ski out,up at Big White, walking distance
to the village.
It's all pretty flat.
So it was a pretty amazingopportunity.
And then he's a business partnerin that development company.
Of the nine units we built, weended up keeping one and spent a
ton of time up there this lastyear, which was amazing.
(21:50):
So for personally, it was a greatinvestment.
It was really fun for the family,taught the girls how to ski.
It was a hoot.
But in terms of building, that's
regional district of CootieBoundary, which is super odd.
Right.
You're dealing with this office
in, I think it's in Grand Forks,like three and a half hours away,
as opposed to, you know, city ofKelowna.
I'm not sure.
I think city of Kelowna wants it
(22:11):
to be in their jurisdiction, butthat's another conversation, but
big white themselves are extremelypro development.
So they, you know, when I boughtthe land, they literally reached
out to me.
I've never had this happen before.
Hey, what can we do to make iteasy?
and enjoyable for you to build uphere so if you need a place to
park your equipment if you needsome extra dirt like whatever you
need just let us know wow and youknow admittedly they said listen
(22:33):
like we just we want more buildingup there that puts more people in
our chairlifts at the end of theday right so it kind of makes
sense so they'll do whatever theycan but on the flip side of that
is it's extremely hard to build upthere because no matter what
you're like a minimum two -yearbuild right you have a short
season for construction yeah so upthere right now there's You know,
I don't know how many there'sseven or eight feet of snow.
So kind of by the time it melts orit's manageable, you've got to
(22:54):
like dig your footings, get yourfoundation, get everything
prepped, get it framed, kind ofget it to lock up.
And then it's snowing like crazyagain.
Right.
And then the next year you'd come
back and then you'd finish it off.
Some of the bigger projects are
three, four or five years.
Right.
To build.
So it's a very expensive place to
build for multiple reasons,because a lot of the trades don't
want to go up there.
So they charge you a lot of travel
or they'll just charge you, youknow, just 10 or 20 % more to go
(23:17):
up to big white, obviouslyexpensive to get materials up
there as well.
a And then just like the climate
up there is insane.
So the unit that we built, we were
putting the roof system on and I'mnot a carpenter by trade.
I come from an accountingbackground, but we're putting the
roof system on and like, I'venever seen so many trusses spaced
like so close together.
And I'm like, okay, what's going
on here?And the framers were like, holy
cow, this is a lot.
(23:37):
And just like the amount of
engineering that went into thesystem.
So I phoned the engineer and said,what's going on?
And he's like, man, we had to ratethe roof of your unit for 1
million pounds of snow.
1 million pounds.
Yeah.
So I'm like, well.
why and he said well we have toassume that it could potentially
have like nine feet of snow on theentire roof but also where it's
been like you know rained on andpushed down and compacted so like
(23:58):
just the amount of like weight andsnow load it's insane so like
everything you do up there it'sjust like insanely expensive so
that's funny so on the same kindof note i sold a unit up there a
couple months ago and then specterwent to go in the attic the attic
opening was like and just thethat's funny so on the same kind
of note i sold a unit up there acouple months ago and then specter
went to go in the attic the atticopening was like Nine inches
(24:19):
because all the trusses were soclose together.
Get up there.
Then he looked up there and he
said the same thing.
He's like, man, there is like so
many trusses up here, spacedreally close together.
So if that makes sense.
together.
Man, missed opportunity.
I remember when I was a kid
shoveling driveways for like twobucks.
Just go up to Big White.
Like I imagine you guys are just
shoveling snow for six months ofthe year just to like get to your
(24:41):
material.
Two bucks.
You're going to shovel nine feetof snow off of a million pounds.
Well, obviously you're going tocharge more now, you're going to
charge more now, man.
Like 450.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like you got to budget a lot for
the snow removal because thefourplex, like we kind of
abandoned it for a bit becausethere's so much snow.
We got it.
We have to start mathematically.
We want to try to get it done forthis snow season.
Right.
So it's that like framing lockup
stage.
So we went to hop back on it and I
(25:04):
think I had two machines up therefor two weeks.
The clearing snow.
Oh, man.
You're just like taking money andjust like flushing it.
It's funny because it's not likeyou just take the snow and put it
to the side of the driveway.
funny because it's not like you
just take the snow and put it tothe side of the driveway.
You got to take it somewhere,right?
Yeah, You got to take itsomewhere, right?
(25:24):
Yeah, you can pile it as high asyou can on your own property and
then eventually you just have totruck it away, right?
It's kind of wild though, likecomparables up there.
You know, you're buying, I guessmost of them are like fourplexes
or duplexes or something, but likethe cost doesn't seem outrageous
when you consider the surpluscharge that builders would have to
incur to go up there, right?Because the land costs would be
(25:44):
slightly cheaper?The land costs are slightly
cheaper, land costs are slightlycheaper, yeah.
But you know, I don't know howfamiliar people are, but if you
look at the homes right above uson Feathertop Way, there's a bunch
of nice single -family homes beingbuilt in there.
That's a nice subdivision.
But it is pretty expensive.
You're looking at $2 .1 to $4 .5million for a 3 ,800 -square -foot
house.
And the land is at most $800 ,000
for a lot.
The prices are expensive.
You're looking at some of theolder stuff, yeah.
pretty good deals, especially ifyou're in some sort of a
multifamily with shared costs,right?
Yeah.
Are you a CPA?
Like, is that what you went toschool for or business?
(26:06):
Yeah, Yeah, I did a four -yearcommerce degree at UBC Van.
And then I did major in accountingand then did some finance and real
estate.
But I had job offers like the big
four firms and I accepted withKPMG.
But in the background, I'd alreadystarted this company in my second
year.
I was kind of managing it from
Vancouver.
Wasn't doing a heck of a lot.
But I just had this moment.
I like it was a first week of
KPMG.
I was back in Kelowna.
(26:26):
So I was going to get my CPA.
I just had this moment.
I'm like, man, if I don't givethis construction company a go
right now, like by the time Ispend three or four more years
getting my CPA, I'm never going todo it.
I was like, hey, I'm just going togive it one year.
I'm going to try this constructionthing.
I'd never even been on aconstruction job, so I had no
business starting a constructioncompany.
But I just gave it one year.
I'm just going to see how it goes.
And that's kind of how that gotgoing.
Yeah, I didn't know that.
So I feel like most construction
companies start the other wayaround, right?
(26:47):
They're like they're a builder andthen they kind of get into it.
And they're usually like in overtheir head, just in the financial
side of things.
But you're probably better off to
start where you came from.
It could go either way, I think.
go either way, I think.
But yeah, you're right.
So most builders, you got to thinkby and large, they come from a
construction background, maybeeven start as a laborer, then a
(27:08):
carpenter, then kind of a sitesupervisor.
Like all carpenters are trying toget off the tools at a certain
point, right?Yeah.
So I think a lot of those guysbecome builders and a lot of them
are incredible builders becausethey've been in construction their
entire life.
They just know everything about
every aspect of build.
But when it comes to the business
side of things, they're completelyjust learning on the fly, right?
Like in terms of the taxes, theinvoices.
(27:29):
And all that sort of thing.
So with my accounting background,
I did spend like four years on thetools, you know, meeting the
trades, being immersed in it,quickly kind of moved out the
tools.
And then I have like a one main
guy, one main constructionmanager.
And the guy is like incrediblewith all aspects of construction.
And then we take care of.
what I'll call his weaknesses,
which is all the paperwork in-house.
So having that accountingbackground, I think has been a
(27:49):
huge competitive advantage andkind of differentiator, especially
if you're trying to do higher endhomes or even these multifamily
projects, sometimes we'll bring ininvestors.
Well, when you have a set of likefinancials and budgets and all
sorts of paperwork, that'sextremely well -organized and you
can talk about the taximplications, et cetera, it's
going to give you an advantageover the competition.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, specifically in
today's market, right, wherethere's so many unknowns and you
kind of need to have that securityof it.
In terms of building right now,like what are people's biggest
(28:10):
mistakes?What are trends?
I guess trends are basically juststagnant.
No one's doing anything right now.
We're going European.
We're going European.
Yeah.
Yeah.
True.
And Asian influence for sure.
yeah and agent influence yeah i
think biggest mistakes people makethat's i think a pretty simple
answer i guess in terms of we'retalking about like a custom home
it's just not having like an openand honest communication up front
with your builder and that couldbe on the client or that could be
on the builder so You know, if thebuilder's not being honest about
(28:31):
how much it's actually going tocost, that's going to lead to big
problems once the product'sunderway or how long the project's
going to take.
So that's also not a good start.
And then for the client, if theclient's not being open and honest
with how much they realisticallyand comfortably want to spend,
it's not good.
And then also if they're not being
honest with how long they thinkthe product's going to take or,
you know, certain features that Icall them like must have features
for the client.
(28:51):
If they're not, you know, telling
the contractor that.
It's just going to be kind of a
rocky road right from the start.
And then also just probably not
choosing the right builder.
Interesting, like Kelowna, when we
go to these award shows, there areso many good builders in Kelowna.
Like the quality of these awardshow of the photos and of the
projects that you see peoplebuilding, it's just like it's jaw
dropping.
So tons of exceptional builders
and developers in Kelowna.
(29:13):
So lots of good options.
But you want to make sure whenyou're choosing your builder, like
make sure that you.
trust them.
Obviously it's going to be amassive investment.
So make sure you have a lot oftrust in that person, especially
if it's like a cost plus job,right?
Cause you have the trust that allthese invoices are for their
house.
And then, you know, there's a
markup added to that.
And then you have to like them
(29:34):
too, right?Like you're going to spend seven,
eight months to three or fouryears with this person.
So make sure that you like themand you get along with them.
And then I always recommend likeask a ton of questions.
And that builder should have ananswer to every single question.
You know, no questions asked.
They should not hesitate.
And, you know, make sure that youtalk to the clients that they
built for or, you know, you visittheir job sites that they have on
(29:57):
the go.
Like, are the job sites well
organized?Are they clean?
Do they have job sites on the go?So all things like that.
So just have open and honestcommunication.
Otherwise, you can get derailed.
pretty quickly.
Yeah.
I feel like a huge one there,
which I don't know if people do ornot, but it's like, Hey, can I
come walk through a home you'rebuilding right now?
Like, you know, why would you notdo that?
(30:19):
Do you get most clients looking todo that?
A hundred percent.
hundred percent.
Yeah.
Like I actually take a lot of
clients through my personal homejust to show them like what I did
personally in terms of features,where I spent the money, where I
didn't spend the money is almostequally important.
And we'll take them throughprojects that are underway or
projects that are similar to theirown.
Right.
Or if we're talking to them about
a, Hey, you should do this coolfeature.
(30:40):
Lots of people are doing this.
So I think you're going to love
this.
We can take them through one of
the projects and have them walkthrough it and see it in person.
So just trying to add value andmake sure the person gets the best
result at the end of the day.
Yeah.
Do you get a lot of like self-enjoyment for like walking
through, like handing the keysover?
Like, is that kind of the reasonwhy you like to build is seeing
(31:02):
like a client come in and be like,Oh man, this is my dream home.
Man, that's a fascinatingquestion.
I project managed for probablyeight or nine years.
And now, like I alluded toearlier, I'm pretty much primarily
in the office.
I have project managers now.
So I'm not on site a ton.
I miss that.
I miss being able to hand the keysto the clients.
I guess I could.
(31:23):
I could overrule my project
manager and tell me.
Give me those.
I'm having a bad day.
I want to feel better.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But no, so yeah, the projectmanagers hand over the keys and
they get the glory, right?It's like real estate agents and
mortgage brokers.
like real estate agents and
mortgage brokers.
I mostly now, like my job is
managing people, right?It's just teaching, training and
trusting and delegating, right?To the people that I have in
place.
Yeah.
I love that answer.
Okay.
Well, we got to start getting intoour wrap up.
(31:45):
part here.
So I'll just dive into it.
I feel like Matt and I have askedus 10 different ways.
So just give us the answer.
If you could buy property in the
next 12 months in the Okanagan,what would it be?
So one of my life goals actuallygrowing up was to at one point
live on the water in OkanaganLake.
Cause I was like, you know what,if you can do that, you know, like
(32:05):
you've made it right.
Like you're going to live this
Okanagan lifestyle.
You're going to be walking off
your dock on the boat and doingall the great things.
But in 2019, we bought a lot inLakeview Heights, like a view lot
in Lakeview Heights and a newlittle subdivision that actually
the Bylandons developed and justcompletely love it.
Like we love every bit of it.
We love the location.
We love the privacy.
We love the old growth, the
neighborhood, the amenities closeby.
(32:25):
We've got, you know, you'reliterally driving through
vineyards to get to your house.
Nestor's, we've got a little
bakery there.
Beautiful view.
And it's a great spot to raiseyour family.
We're on a cul -de -sac.
So for me.
My dream, I've put the otherdream.
It's no longer a dream.
And we want to buy like a legacy
property in Lakeview Heights,private, big, and I want to tear
something down.
And then I want to build a nice
house for us and actually acarriage house.
And I've already kind of talked myin -laws into moving into the
(32:47):
carriage house.
Awesome.
I have the floor plans and I havethe renderings and they're
actually saved on my desktop.
So I see these floor plans every
day.
So it will happen.
I'm willing it into existence.
So I love that.
It's only a month of time.
Matt, you were way farther ahead
to your dream than most of ourother guests when we asked that
question.
than most of our other guests when
we asked that question.
Yeah, like financially invested
and it's going to happen.
like financially invested and it's
(33:08):
going to happen.
Yeah.
Well, and Lakeview is such a greatarea.
It is a nice area.
That's it.
It's the Kitsilano of Kelowna,man.
Like we can literally rip downtownin six minutes.
But then at the same time, we havethis like private large piece of
property.
Like it's just unbeatable.
Yeah.
Great.
That's awesome.
All right.
If you could give your 20 -year-old self any advice.
(33:28):
What are you saying?Embrace failure.
failure.
Nice.
I think generally, thinkgenerally, even just speaking for
myself, you know, no one likesbeing bad at things and no one
likes failing at things or lookingsilly in front of other people.
And I think because of that, weavoid, you know, pursuing our
dreams.
We avoid trying new things.
And I think it just holds us backin so many ways and so many
aspects of life.
(33:48):
If you can embrace failure and
know that it's actually necessaryto be successful, you have to fail
a lot of times.
I literally all, all my
businesses, we fail every day.
It's like, okay, how can we not do
that again?Let's iterate.
Let's put some procedures inplace.
Let's not make that mistake again,but you're failing all the time,
but that's just part of success,right?
I just quickly want to say, Ilistened to a podcast a year ago.
We all have young kids.
(34:09):
So this is important.
The lady was saying how, insteadof asking her kids when they got
home from school, you know, whatwas the best part of your day?
What did you succeed at today?She would ask them, what was the
thing that you failed at today?And I just thought that was so
cool because.
She was like normalizing failure,
right?Saying that like, hey, this is
normal.
This is good.
This is good to fail.
(34:30):
And she said after a few months,
the kids would get home and belike, oh, you wouldn't believe how
badly I screwed up the whole day.
And she said it like.
No, you're getting a call.
Yeah, but she became this thing
like all the kids would try tooutdo each other's failures.
And I just think that'sincredible.
That's something I want to passdown to my kids.
That's interesting.
I just think if you want to be
(34:50):
successful, you've got to realizethat you are going to fail.
normal.
This is good.
This is No, you're Like a lot.
It's unavoidable.
Yeah.
I don't know if I listen to the
same podcast, but I've definitely,I've heard that as well.
And yeah, I love that.
What's your favorite charity or
how do you get back?We get involved with the clone of
Santas.
get involved with the clone of
Santas.
So we'll do like these Christmas
hampers, like these customChristmas hampers every winter for
(35:13):
families that are in need.
It's actually an incredibly like
emotional experience.
They introduce you to a couple of
families and there's kind of alist of items that they can't
afford to have.
Get those items together and you
can deliver them to the family.
And it's pretty powerful.
We'll do like Thanksgiving fooddrives and such and get food and
donate some groceries and whatnot.
And then actually my right hand on
my construction manager, he's gotthree boys in hockey.
So I swear we must sponsor likeevery hockey team and every
sweater and everything throughoutthe entire Okanagan.
(35:33):
I wrote the young gentleman's namedown just like.
Two weeks ago, we have sponsoredMaverick McCarthy.
I think he's like a 12 -year -old.
Apparently, he's an absolute stud.
Oh, yeah.
He's trying to make the NHL.
Apparently, he's like the bestdefenseman in Western Canada.
I don't know.
Yeah.
But, you know, trying to make theNHL, it's expensive probably to do
so.
So, we just put some money in and
hopefully he makes it.
Sweet.
Remember that name.
(35:54):
Remember that name.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, maybe we should have him onthe podcast before he makes it
big, you know?Get him on the pod, right?
right?Maybe we should have him on our
team.
Matt's trying to spice up a hockey
league for us to get into him.
He's only 12.
Hey, man, he's got to skate betterthan us.
He'll definitely be way betterthan us.
He's probably huge.
Yeah, who knows?
He's on the creatine for sure.
(36:15):
than us.
He'll He's on the creatine forsure.
Well, absolutely.
He's on the protein diet for sure.
Yeah, that's awesome.
All right.
How can Taylor or I or ourlistener help you?
What can we do for you?If you guys want to check out our
websites, we're handhhomes ca, all spelled out.
So it's a cool spot to check outour projects that we've done
before and see some more awards,contact numbers on there and our
emails on there.
We're on Facebook and Instagram
under H &H Homes and OkanaganInfel as well for both those
companies.
(36:35):
So if anyone wants to reach out,
stop by the office or give us acall, honestly, in a 10 or 15
minute conversation, we can answera lot of people's questions and
let them know if what they'rethinking about is feasible, you
know, how much is going to cost.
cost to build and how long it's
going to take.
Yeah.
Or we just go with a weighted walkwith you, you know, I'll jump on
your back and we'll just do lapsaround the mission and throw on
(36:58):
the rucksack.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right, man.
Well, thank you for coming on.
It's been a long time coming and
yeah, I appreciate you.
So yeah.
on.
Yeah.
Thanks guys.
Yeah.
If you see me, uh, walking aroundlower mission there, a hunched
over with a backpack, give me ahonk or a wave.
Right.
And we'll all avoid any puddles if
it's raining.
we'll all avoid any puddles if
it's raining.
Yeah.
I got you there.
All right.
Thanks Jeff.
We'll see you around, man.
(37:18):
Appreciate it.
Cheers guys.
Appreciate it.
Welcome back to the Colonial RealEstate Podcast.
(00:01):
I'm your mortgage broker host,Taylor Atkinson.
And I'm your real estate agenthost, Matt Glenn.
What's shaking, Taylor?How was the run?
Yeah, my legs are shaking, man.
Run was good.
I doubt it, dude.
You're like the fittest guy I
know.
Yeah, we went down to Vancouver
this weekend.
I just did the BMO half, so not
the full one.
But man, what a beautiful race
course.
21K?
Yeah.
Yeah, it only took me six hours.
(00:21):
No. Yeah, it was an hour and 50.
So I was pretty happy.
I doubt it, happy.
That's pretty good.
Yeah.
Because I know the 10K, like you
kind of want to get under an hour.
So like more than double under two
hours.
That's pretty good.
Yeah.
And like Vancouver, like
Vancouver, man, you kind offorget.
We haven't been there in a while.
Like it's a gorgeous city.
We had a ton of fun.
Like took Leo to the women's
professional soccer team there.
(00:42):
The Rise was a great soccer game.
Did the aquarium.
Just yeah, it was cool to get out.
And you kind of forget what a bigcity feels like.
And then you come back to Coloniaand you're like.
a ton of It's tiny, but we'regetting there.
There's a couple big buildingsgoing up.
More by the second.
How are you guys doing?
Good.
I have not done any half marathons
or half marathons, but doing good.
(01:03):
Adjusting to life with two kids.
Going from one kid to two kids isan extraordinary difference.
It's not twice as hard.
It's at least five or six times as
hard.
Yeah.
In like six months, you'll forgetwhat one kid was like though.
You'll just, this will be the newnorm.
(01:24):
Oh, exactly.
Already like we're three months in
or whatever and it's alreadygetting to that point.
So yeah, just an adjustment, butit's been awesome.
Yeah.
It's not because either of the
kids are difficult either.
They just have different needs at
different times and yeah, it'sjust hard.
So, but it's been also extremelyrewarding.
also extremely rewarding.
Sweet.
Well, summertime's here.
So now it's just.
Naked baby time, you know, you letthem run around, no diapers and
(01:45):
just, yeah, that's good stuff.
Yeah, I like it.
Yeah, well, our guest also has twokids.
We were talking to Jeff Houghtonfrom H &H Homes, Okanagan Infill.
He's got a handful of arms of thebusiness, I guess.
He's building up at Big White,does infill projects, does custom
homes.
Does rental projects.
Does rental projects, yeah.
His background, he comes from like
an accountant.
type background.
(02:05):
So he really knows the numbers andknows how to make it work.
Another great guy from Boucherie.
I feel like half of our guests for
some reason have been fromBoucherie, which I just love.
But yeah, so I've known Jeff forages.
Yeah, he gets some wicked productsout there.
They've won a bunch of awards andI love this show.
It was great.
I did too.
It was just really great gettinghis perspective because he's just
(02:27):
in it all, right?Doing all the things real estate.
It was very good to talk to him.
He's a great guy.
Yeah, I think the takeaway here islike, Real estate, it's not just
one shoe fits all and you're goingto be successful if you just do
this one thing for the next 30years.
You have to adapt and pivotspecifically now.
And Jeff's obviously doing that.
Some things are profitable for a
few years and then it dries up andyou're on to the next until
(02:48):
government policy changes ortariffs or whatever happens.
But yeah, lots of good informationon this one.
So you guys are going to like it.
I'd agree with that 100%.
Also, we're out for Kelowna now.
Kelowna now.
By the time their show getsreleased, you have like, Eight
hours, maybe even less to vote forus.
So get on.
Yeah, we're not the best at
collecting votes, but it wouldmean a lot to us.
(03:09):
So we got nominated, but now yougot to vote for us to take the
gold home.
Best podcast in Kelowna.
in Kelowna.
Last year we won bronze.
So we really like the gold.
Yeah.
Or silver, whatever.
I'll take any step up.
Or bronze, man.
Bronze is pretty cool.
Yeah.
But yeah, it's kind of a tricky
one to vote.
So you got to go on Kelowna now
and then scroll down to media andbest podcast.
(03:31):
So yeah, I appreciate the supporton that one, guys.
Yeah.
Thank you very much.
Thanks for last year too.
for last year too.
Yeah.
This episode, like every episode
is sponsored by Century 21Assurance Realty.
Brookridge in Okanagan.
We're everywhere in all the cities
in the interior.
We're looking for agents, looking
for clients, buyers, sellers.
If you're one of those, give us a
call.
I'd love to talk to you.
See if we can work out for eachother.
(03:54):
Enjoy the show.
Okay, Jeff Houghton from H &H
Homes.
How's it going, man?
Hey, thank you for having me,guys.
Appreciate it.
it. So we just like to start our
show with what's your perfectFriday look like?
Other than, you know, you and Irunning into each other at daycare
drop off.
What else do you do on Fridays?
You'll get to know me here inshort order.
get to know me here in shortorder.
(04:15):
I'm a pretty regimented anddisciplined person.
So normal Friday, I actually workout seven days a week, 5am during
the weekdays and 6am on theweekends.
And I don't really miss a day.
So good for you.
for you.
Nice.
And then typical guy workouts, alot of weightlifting and very
little stretching or cardio.
And I did realize like, even
though I'm in construction, about95 % of the time I'm in front of a
computer.
So I didn't get many steps in any
particular days.
I'm maybe three, four or 5 ,000
(04:35):
steps a day.
And I'd read a documentary on
these blue zones.
If you guys know what those are.
Yes, Yes, I had long life.
Yeah.
It was like a direct correlationbetween the average steps you take
each day and the longevity of yourlife.
was like a direct correlationbetween the average steps you take
each day and the longevity of yourlife.
(04:56):
I was like, man, I'm lifting allthese weights, but I better get my
steps in.
So I also, after lunch hour,
strategically, I do a walk, a 45-minute walk every day as well.
Nice.
And I'm in a flat area in the
lower mission, so I now do aweighted walk.
So a walk with 40 or 50 or 60pounds on my back.
with So that kind of helps thecardio, helps get me my steps in,
and then kind of gives me thatafternoon burst of energy that I
need from sitting in an office allday.
(05:17):
And it also helps you digest yourfood.
Nice.
I do the same thing.
I just slap my kids on my backthough.
How old are your kids?Two years and seven weeks.
We're all in the thick of it,right?
Yes.
Yes.
But yeah, we live in McKinley.
Hills everywhere.
And like every time I go for awalk, I have someone strapped to
me.
We're Yeah.
And then lately, as it might get akick into this, but I weigh 190.
So I'm trying to do 190 grams ofprotein per day.
(05:38):
I feel that's like on trend rightnow.
Yeah.
It's honestly like a full -time
job.
Because you only want to eat like
40 grams per meal.
So you've got to space it out to
like five meals.
So lots of beef, you've got of
beef, lots of eggs, and thenfruits and vegetables.
And I've pretty much cut alcoholto zero, carbs to zero.
I feel way better after cuttingout the carbs.
And like zero junk food.
So pretty regimented, pretty
(05:59):
routine.
And then in terms of just the
perfect Friday, as you guys knowwith young kids, they're long
weeks.
And sometimes the weekends are
busier.
So the perfect Friday is like,
it's probably to bed pretty early,like maybe a family barbecue and
get to bed and get ramped up forthe weekend.
Getting ready for your 6amworkout.
get to ready for your 6am workout.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And well, Hey, something on the
(06:20):
health side, not that this is ahealth show, but Dr. Rhonda
Patrick, she just.
got out her hundredth episode,
long episodes on podcasts.
Like she's like over two hours and
like very sophisticated, but a lotof research recently shown on
creatine for not just muscles, butlike brain bones, maybe
incorporate some of that.
But one interesting fact on that,
not to get really sidetracked, butthere is quite a bit of data to
show recovery on concussions andprevention on concussions.
(06:41):
Like that's how much it affectsthe brain.
Yeah.
brain.
Give it a listen.
Shout out to Dr. Rhonda Patrick.
Yes, you take creatine every dayand then collagen as well every
day.
Yes, you take creatine every day
and then collagen as well everyday.
Good source of collagen.
But creatine, you got to watch
out.
I think I gained like 16 pounds of
water weight when I originallyhopped on it.
(07:01):
You hold a lot more water.
That kind of peters off.
collagen.
Talking about work, I've known you
for a long time and I've alwaysknown that you've had H &H homes,
custom homes, mostly singlefamily.
Only recently, you know, I've seenOkanagan infill on the side of
your truck chatting to you a bitthis winter.
I see you're up at Big White aswell.
You're in a lot of different areasand assets.
Can you kind of touch over theumbrella of your company, your
(07:23):
building side?Yeah, I'd love to.
So H &H Homes actuallyincorporated that company in my
second year of university.
So I'm six.
Didn't really get on the toolsuntil I graduated in 2008, which
was an interesting time to start,right?
Yeah.
It was super deflated and super
depressed, but a good time tostart because I kind of got to
like handpick all the trades thatI wanted.
Everyone was slow.
Yeah.
(07:43):
So I got to build a really goodteam.
I'm still using like 90 % of thosetrades today, which is kind of
neat.
Nice.
But yeah, so the H &H customhomes, so that's single family
custom homes.
We do some spec homes as well.
So that's been going for 16 yearsand we've done about 120 homes.
And then we do renovations and wedo some like commercial leasehold
improvements as well.
(08:04):
Yeah, we've won renovation of the
year, home of the year and builderof the year as well.
So it's been a successful company.
But as you guys can speak to, you
can kind of see the trend,especially in Kelowna going toward
like densification, infillprojects.
So I had met a guy in 2019 thatwas really interested in getting
the infill going.
it's been So we started a company,
Okanagan Infill.
We're kind of niche.
(08:24):
So we do like two, three, fourplexes, but kind of on the higher
end side, kind of, you know,bigger square footage, higher end,
just stuff where you don't see alot of it in the Okanagan.
So we've kind of got that nicheproduct.
Are they stratified?Are you selling them off or is it
like a rental portfolio after?Yeah.
So in this company, they're allstratified and all sold off.
Okay.
Yeah.
And then I've got a separate, abig white development company
(08:48):
where we bought a chunk of land.
It's part of the Sundown Strata of
the big white.
So we bought some residual land.
So last year we built five units.
We built a single family and two
duplexes.
And then right now we're just
finishing off.
We're doing a fourplex.
And then we have a, we have apiece of property that is actually
touching the base of like thebullet chairlift.
So we own like a little piece ofproperty there too, which is
(09:08):
pretty exciting.
Yeah.
So we do the developing and thebuilding up there.
I also have a holding company.
We do purpose -built rentals.
So right now we're building apurpose -built rental duplex in
Lakeview Heights on CrestviewDrive with legal suites in the
basement.
So we'll build that and throw it
in the portfolio and keep it.
And then sometimes we'll find
really good buys on nicer olderhomes.
(09:29):
We'll do a renovation and putthose into the portfolio as well.
I think it's important todiversify, right?
Especially as it gets... slower.
So, you know, right now the
construction industry is a littlebit slower.
We'll see what happens with theinterest rates here, but when it's
slower, okay, we can just pivotand let's keep all our stuff busy.
Let's keep our guys busy.
We'll build this rental duplex
with legal suites, right?know, right That is awesome.
(09:49):
So like two huge takeaways thereis I think you get so many people,
not just this industry, but a lotof industries, but specifically
you see it more in this industry,giving advice that aren't.
really doing it themselves, likereal estate agents, mortgage
brokers, builders, whatever, thatdon't own their own home or
haven't built.
So I think it's really important
to have that.
experience so you can give proper
advice on it and point two likeyou said being able to pivot and
(10:12):
diversify again a lot of people inthe industry that will just sit
there and be like oh yeah timesare tough like you know i'm not
making money i gotta do layoffsbut if you have the ability to
adapt like you're doing bediversified like that's the only
way to succeed on it touching backto that like starting out in 08 it
was extremely slow like youcouldn't even put the keys into a
front door of a house and havesomeone just take the house right
(10:33):
like i think it took us 11 monthsto sell back to that like starting
out in 08 it was extremely slowlike you couldn't even put the
keys into a front door of a houseand have someone just take the
house right like i think it tookus 11 months to sell like the
first spec house that I built, youknow, kind of having survived
those times when it gets slow,like right now, like you've got a
(10:53):
full toolkit that you can use,right?
Like you got to cut back on yourexpenses.
You got to get creative.
You got to do other things.
So yeah, you seem like you havereally good composure again, like.
You know, it's normally a daycaredrop off.
I'm seeing you where it's like itis chaos.
But I imagine it's similar to abuild site.
So, you know, you're carryingyourself very well.
You know, talking about stressfultimes, you know, we could touch on
this a little bit like tariffs.
What do tariffs do for your
business right now?Obviously, like there's a lot of
uncertainty, a lot of unknown.
So we're not here to kind of give
advice like this podcast is goingto come out in a month from now.
So probably a lot is going tochange.
(11:14):
But what do you have going onright now that it's affecting?
Yeah, I think the first thing youguys said is we just don't know.
That's like the most importantthing to go over with Trump.
Obviously, he could decide thatall these tariffs are off tomorrow
and maybe the stock marketrebounds, you know, the 8 % that
it's gone down.
We don't know.
But right now, there's a lot ofpivoting in the supply chain.
So we're being forced to usedifferent materials just because
(11:35):
the price increases have gone upso quickly.
So any of you guys... that knowlike james hardy plank siding
which is a concrete based sidingthat's your lap siding you're
bored of bad and you see itliterally on 80 of the homes and
actually on our big white projectstoo they just raised last week
prices across the board by about25 and on an average home like on
a 3 000 square foot walkoutrancher that equates like 10 grand
probably 10 or 11 grand There'salso a Canadian company that
manufactures called LP SmartSides.
(11:55):
It's a similar product.
It's not concrete based.
Some people don't think it's quite
as good, but it's still a goodproduct.
So like everyone's pivoting overto them because they were
similarly priced to James Hardy.
But of course, then I just heard
the grapevine that those prices, Idon't know whether they can't keep
up with demand or that they'vejust decided that now they're
underpriced, but apparentlythey're going to do a huge price
increase as well.
(12:16):
You're just playing this game of
cat and mouse, you know, pivoting,but I don't know how much that's
going to work or how long to dothat.
Right.
how long to do that.
Right.
Like Matt and I spoke about that
before trying to be optimisticabout tariffs.
I mean, like this is such a greatopportunity for Canadian based
companies to go out and sell toother countries or buy internally
or even just other Canadians.
(12:37):
even just other Canadians.
Yeah, but this is a prime exampleof what happens, I guess, is they
don't have the supply to do that.
They need to increase costs on it,
or they just take advantage, notsaying LP is, but people are just
going to end up inherently doingthat if everything else goes up
with inflation.
Just putting the prices to market
(12:58):
rate.
Exactly, right?
Yeah, they can charge 20 % moreand probably still get 90 % of the
business, Exactly, right?Yeah, they can charge 20 % more
and probably still get 90 % of thebusiness, right?
Yeah.
I don't know what direction
they're going, but I think that'slike Trump's.
purpose of tariffs is to bring themanufacturing back.
I get that.
Actually, probably in the long
run, once everything settles down,it could be a really good thing
for their country.
(13:18):
Anyway, we would be forced to do
it as well, but there's going tobe a lot of growing pains in the
meantime, right?Like we're not set up to just
start manufacturing all thesethings tomorrow.
There's tariffs on, right?Well, yeah, it's like supply and
demand in real estate, right?There's not enough housing.
We've had this housing shortage.
This is a prime example of like,
Your cost directly has to go upand that has to be passed on to
(13:40):
the end user now.
Yeah.
I know there's cost plus fixed.
If you're in any current contracts
right now, what do you do?What does the end user homeowner,
what can they expect out of this?The honest answer is that right
now, honest answer is that rightnow, we don't know.
We're just going to patientlywait.
We'll probably wait for a coupleof weeks to see, okay, is Trump
going to repeal these?Are these here to stay?
And then, like I said, it's amatter of just checking with the
(14:01):
supply chain.
It's actually surprising.
It seems like in construction, alot of the stuff that we buy, it
seems to me we're going to beokay.
So far, I think Windows have goneup 7%.
We talked about the James Hardy.
A lot of appliances come from the
States.
You've got your Whirlpools, your
Frigidares, your KitchenAid.
I think that's from the States.
So we can probably pivot toEuropean and Chinese brands.
You can probably pivot to yourLGs.
(14:23):
Every house will have a Bertazzonirange.
house will have a Bertazzonirange.
Well, yeah.
Yeah, the honest sense is I don't
100 % know.
I think just each day we're
probably going to know more.
Yeah.
But it's definitely going tocreate more economic uncertainty.
And it's going to make more peopleprobably wait on the sidelines
even longer, right?So you're in such an interesting
position here because you'rebuilding new homes, spec homes,
(14:43):
custom homes, rental properties.
infill where's the smart money
going right now or where's thesmartest money if there is any
smart money do rental projectspencil spec homes pencil like how
does this infill projects work outlike what are your thoughts on
that where should we spend ourmoney i don't want to make this
too doom and gloom but yeah likespec houses don't want to make
this too doom and gloom but yeahlike spec houses Don't really
pencil the multifamily.
Like we just got approved.
(15:04):
This is a funny story.
So we've got a nineplex that we
designed in Lower Mission.
We're super pumped about it.
It takes a long time in the designphase.
So we don't need to start itimmediately.
But we're talking to the city ofKelowna doing our development
permit.
And there was 12 applications for
new builds.
And we were the only one of the 12
that we're actually going to buildand try to sell the thing.
(15:24):
The other 11 applications were allpurpose -built rentals.
Wow.
Yes, the smart money, as you
mentioned earlier, a lot of thestuff you see in town, especially
multifamily, you see the big woodframe structures like everywhere.
Yes.
And you know, if you're like me,
you're like, who's moving intothese things?
They're all the same squarefootage.
They're all the same design.
They all just look like square
boxes.
Like side note, note, but what are
(15:45):
all these things going to looklike in 10 to 20 years?
This is what I just cannot getover.
Great question.
That's all I'm going to say.
going to say.
They look pretty right now, but
like drive down Pandozzi off thehighway and there's like 20 old
apartment buildings that justlooks like.
They're never going to goanywhere.
And that's kind of like the maincorridor into the mission.
It's just going to look like thatfor eternity.
Maybe a little short -sighted, butyou know, when you look at
something more than like a 10, 20,30, 40, 60 plexes.
(16:07):
So CMHC, which is a governmentprogram, they will lend the
developer the money.
They'll lend you up to 95 % loan
to value.
And plus they'll amortize a
project for 40 to 50 years.
So like those projects pencil
because you can get your rentersin there.
Actually, you can even charge abuilder's fee within your cost,
right?So that's why you're just seeing a
ton of those projects going up intown, So ton of those projects
(16:29):
going up in town, right?Follow the money, follow the
incentive, and then you can seethe result, right?
Yeah.
up in town, right?
But yeah, in terms of spec houseis not great right now, unless
you're like 1 .1 and under, right?Is the GST break in now?
Is there zero GST?I think to a million right there.
a million right there.
Yeah.
And then the property purchase taxtoo.
I think there's a break on that aswell.
So yeah.
Yeah.
Kind of back to the question ofhow to make money.
Like nothing's going to makemoney, but in your infill company,
like, can we talk a little bitabout... how to subdivide.
(16:52):
Like if someone has a singlefamily home and they're like, you
know, I have equity here, I'msitting on a half acre.
I would love to do something withthis and make a bit of cash and to
densify and, you know, add unitslike the city wants to do high
level timeframe costs.
Like if it's on a flat piece of
land, do you guys do much of that?Like, how does that look?
(17:12):
Yeah, so I'll qualify.
I have a right -hand man in the
Okanagan infel that he loveszoning.
He loves dealing with the city.
He loves subdivisions and
stratification.
So he's my guy for that.
But I have a really good example.
We had a client with a house on
Bonju in Lower Mission.
Beautiful lot, beautiful street,
older area.
His house was like shoved off to
the side of a really big lot.
And so we ended up just lopping
off a 40 -foot wide by 100 -footdeep lot right off his side yard.
(17:35):
Oh, nice.
Pretty quick, simple, easy
subdivision process.
So realistically, you can do it
with a builder or in his case, hehad already had the process
started when we were talking tohim.
But you get a civil engineer and asurveyor is kind of how it starts.
And, you know, you've got to bringin new services and utilities.
You get your property lines, makesure that you meet all the city
requirements.
The civil engineer will do that.
Make sure you can build a house ona new piece of property.
(17:57):
And then you just start anapplication with the city.
So very generally, it takes aboutsix to nine months.
to subdivide.
And I would say 140 to 170 ,000
type thing is the costs kind ofall in with your engineering, your
utility upgrades, the city DCCs,et cetera.
It was super cool because he hadan older, it was a really cute
home.
It was well kept, but he lived in
the home.
We built a brand new house beside
him.
They built it all custom.
(18:18):
And then he moved into the customhome and then sold the old home.
And I think he did really well.
Funnily enough, the value of his
old home, I don't think went downat all because he had this
awkward, huge side yard with likethis big tree on it.
It wasn't serving any purpose.
So when he lopped it off, we
fenced his other yard, like hisrear yard.
And I actually think the propertyis like more valuable without all
the added land.
(18:39):
Yeah, that is a good point.
Like you generally don't seevalues decrease.
that much when you're subdividingthat.
To your knowledge, do you know anyprograms other than just tapping
into your own equity?Like how does somebody come up
with 140 to 170 grand tosubdivide?
Like knowing there's profit on theother side of that, but that's a
pretty big barrier to entry.
Are there any companies that kind
of help out with that or programs?Well, shouldn't that be a question
(19:01):
for you?Yeah.
Yeah.
No, fair enough.
fair enough.
Matt, I teed myself up well there.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
So if you call me directly, I'llbe JV in these.
Well, it was kind of a plug to saylike I personally feel like that's
a missed opportunity forgovernment funding.
Like if we're coming out with allthese other, you know, multifamily
stuff, like why are we notinvesting more on single family?
(19:22):
Like I see that area of themarket.
You know, you said around thatmillion dollar 1 .1 in the
Okanagan.
If no one's penciling these to
build a single family home, what'sgoing to happen in five years when
everyone wants a single familyhome?
They're just going to become more.
They're you know, expensive to
turn it around.
Like, would there be any programs
that you would suggest or like,you know, if we're speaking
directly to the government, like,Hey, can we fund some of these
(19:42):
with similar style of financingprograms that we're doing with
multifamily?Yeah.
I don't know if I can speak muchto that, but you know, a lot of
these homeowners, they've been inthe house 30, 40, 50 years.
They have an insane amount ofequity in the property in the
house.
So typically I'm guessing in this
homeowners.
instance, that was what happened.
Just had an insane amount ofequity, easy to go to your bank
and say, listen, this is what Iwant to do.
(20:04):
You get a construction mortgage,you know, you probably finance
maybe a line of credit for thesubdivision process, and then you
can get a construction loan forthe rest.
But yeah, in terms of otheravenues, I don't think the
government circle into that yet.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I mean, we talked to the city
previously and we're going to haveBrian Smith back on shortly, but
like they've commented, like DCCsare just like non -negotiable, but
(20:24):
that was kind of the pitch waslike, well, why don't you do DCCs
at the end?You know, like why are we forcing
homeowners and developers to payfor these costs up front when they
just don't have the money for it?But if you allow that to be paid
out at the end of the project, youknow, there's built in equity.
right?Like, you know, it's a secured
asset.
(20:45):
Yeah.
So for big white, like justselfishly, I'm curious, how's
building going up there?Like, is it still active in terms
of like people want properties atbig white?
Is it growing?Why'd you guys move to big white,
I guess, or expand to big white?it's a Our best friends were
thinking about buying up there andthen we were thinking about
buying.
So that's kind of how it started.
And we were just looking atpotentially buying an older unit.
(21:06):
And, you know, maybe I would do aquick renovation and we would
split it.
The idea being that, like, I think
it's great to be at Big Whitetwice a month, but I don't want to
be up there every single weekend.
And neither do they.
So it's like, hey, we can splitall the costs.
We trust each other to take careof this unit equally.
So we started looking, couldn'tquite find anything that we
wanted.
Then we kind of started to
consider to build.
And then this chunk of land came
(21:27):
up.
So that's kind of how we got.
invested.
And we kind of just hopped on it
right away.
So Sundance is like one of the
best locations, ski in, ski out,up at Big White, walking distance
to the village.
It's all pretty flat.
So it was a pretty amazingopportunity.
And then he's a business partnerin that development company.
Of the nine units we built, weended up keeping one and spent a
ton of time up there this lastyear, which was amazing.
(21:50):
So for personally, it was a greatinvestment.
It was really fun for the family,taught the girls how to ski.
It was a hoot.
But in terms of building, that's
regional district of CootieBoundary, which is super odd.
Right.
You're dealing with this office
in, I think it's in Grand Forks,like three and a half hours away,
as opposed to, you know, city ofKelowna.
I'm not sure.
I think city of Kelowna wants it
(22:11):
to be in their jurisdiction, butthat's another conversation, but
big white themselves are extremelypro development.
So they, you know, when I boughtthe land, they literally reached
out to me.
I've never had this happen before.
Hey, what can we do to make iteasy?
and enjoyable for you to build uphere so if you need a place to
park your equipment if you needsome extra dirt like whatever you
need just let us know wow and youknow admittedly they said listen
(22:33):
like we just we want more buildingup there that puts more people in
our chairlifts at the end of theday right so it kind of makes
sense so they'll do whatever theycan but on the flip side of that
is it's extremely hard to build upthere because no matter what
you're like a minimum two -yearbuild right you have a short
season for construction yeah so upthere right now there's You know,
I don't know how many there'sseven or eight feet of snow.
So kind of by the time it melts orit's manageable, you've got to
(22:54):
like dig your footings, get yourfoundation, get everything
prepped, get it framed, kind ofget it to lock up.
And then it's snowing like crazyagain.
Right.
And then the next year you'd come
back and then you'd finish it off.
Some of the bigger projects are
three, four or five years.
Right.
To build.
So it's a very expensive place to
build for multiple reasons,because a lot of the trades don't
want to go up there.
So they charge you a lot of travel
or they'll just charge you, youknow, just 10 or 20 % more to go
(23:17):
up to big white, obviouslyexpensive to get materials up
there as well.
a And then just like the climate
up there is insane.
So the unit that we built, we were
putting the roof system on and I'mnot a carpenter by trade.
I come from an accountingbackground, but we're putting the
roof system on and like, I'venever seen so many trusses spaced
like so close together.
And I'm like, okay, what's going
on here?And the framers were like, holy
cow, this is a lot.
(23:37):
And just like the amount of
engineering that went into thesystem.
So I phoned the engineer and said,what's going on?
And he's like, man, we had to ratethe roof of your unit for 1
million pounds of snow.
1 million pounds.
Yeah.
So I'm like, well.
why and he said well we have toassume that it could potentially
have like nine feet of snow on theentire roof but also where it's
been like you know rained on andpushed down and compacted so like
(23:58):
just the amount of like weight andsnow load it's insane so like
everything you do up there it'sjust like insanely expensive so
that's funny so on the same kindof note i sold a unit up there a
couple months ago and then specterwent to go in the attic the attic
opening was like and just thethat's funny so on the same kind
of note i sold a unit up there acouple months ago and then specter
went to go in the attic the atticopening was like Nine inches
(24:19):
because all the trusses were soclose together.
Get up there.
Then he looked up there and he
said the same thing.
He's like, man, there is like so
many trusses up here, spacedreally close together.
So if that makes sense.
together.
Man, missed opportunity.
I remember when I was a kid
shoveling driveways for like twobucks.
Just go up to Big White.
Like I imagine you guys are just
shoveling snow for six months ofthe year just to like get to your
(24:41):
material.
Two bucks.
You're going to shovel nine feetof snow off of a million pounds.
Well, obviously you're going tocharge more now, you're going to
charge more now, man.
Like 450.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like you got to budget a lot for
the snow removal because thefourplex, like we kind of
abandoned it for a bit becausethere's so much snow.
We got it.
We have to start mathematically.
We want to try to get it done forthis snow season.
Right.
So it's that like framing lockup
stage.
So we went to hop back on it and I
(25:04):
think I had two machines up therefor two weeks.
The clearing snow.
Oh, man.
You're just like taking money andjust like flushing it.
It's funny because it's not likeyou just take the snow and put it
to the side of the driveway.
funny because it's not like you
just take the snow and put it tothe side of the driveway.
You got to take it somewhere,right?
Yeah, You got to take itsomewhere, right?
(25:24):
Yeah, you can pile it as high asyou can on your own property and
then eventually you just have totruck it away, right?
It's kind of wild though, likecomparables up there.
You know, you're buying, I guessmost of them are like fourplexes
or duplexes or something, but likethe cost doesn't seem outrageous
when you consider the surpluscharge that builders would have to
incur to go up there, right?Because the land costs would be
(25:44):
slightly cheaper?The land costs are slightly
cheaper, land costs are slightlycheaper, yeah.
But you know, I don't know howfamiliar people are, but if you
look at the homes right above uson Feathertop Way, there's a bunch
of nice single -family homes beingbuilt in there.
That's a nice subdivision.
But it is pretty expensive.
You're looking at $2 .1 to $4 .5million for a 3 ,800 -square -foot
house.
And the land is at most $800 ,000
for a lot.
The prices are expensive.
You're looking at some of theolder stuff, yeah.
pretty good deals, especially ifyou're in some sort of a
multifamily with shared costs,right?
Yeah.
Are you a CPA?
Like, is that what you went toschool for or business?
(26:06):
Yeah, Yeah, I did a four -yearcommerce degree at UBC Van.
And then I did major in accountingand then did some finance and real
estate.
But I had job offers like the big
four firms and I accepted withKPMG.
But in the background, I'd alreadystarted this company in my second
year.
I was kind of managing it from
Vancouver.
Wasn't doing a heck of a lot.
But I just had this moment.
I like it was a first week of
KPMG.
I was back in Kelowna.
(26:26):
So I was going to get my CPA.
I just had this moment.
I'm like, man, if I don't givethis construction company a go
right now, like by the time Ispend three or four more years
getting my CPA, I'm never going todo it.
I was like, hey, I'm just going togive it one year.
I'm going to try this constructionthing.
I'd never even been on aconstruction job, so I had no
business starting a constructioncompany.
But I just gave it one year.
I'm just going to see how it goes.
And that's kind of how that gotgoing.
Yeah, I didn't know that.
So I feel like most construction
companies start the other wayaround, right?
(26:47):
They're like they're a builder andthen they kind of get into it.
And they're usually like in overtheir head, just in the financial
side of things.
But you're probably better off to
start where you came from.
It could go either way, I think.
go either way, I think.
But yeah, you're right.
So most builders, you got to thinkby and large, they come from a
construction background, maybeeven start as a laborer, then a
(27:08):
carpenter, then kind of a sitesupervisor.
Like all carpenters are trying toget off the tools at a certain
point, right?Yeah.
So I think a lot of those guysbecome builders and a lot of them
are incredible builders becausethey've been in construction their
entire life.
They just know everything about
every aspect of build.
But when it comes to the business
side of things, they're completelyjust learning on the fly, right?
Like in terms of the taxes, theinvoices.
(27:29):
And all that sort of thing.
So with my accounting background,
I did spend like four years on thetools, you know, meeting the
trades, being immersed in it,quickly kind of moved out the
tools.
And then I have like a one main
guy, one main constructionmanager.
And the guy is like incrediblewith all aspects of construction.
And then we take care of.
what I'll call his weaknesses,
which is all the paperwork in-house.
So having that accountingbackground, I think has been a
(27:49):
huge competitive advantage andkind of differentiator, especially
if you're trying to do higher endhomes or even these multifamily
projects, sometimes we'll bring ininvestors.
Well, when you have a set of likefinancials and budgets and all
sorts of paperwork, that'sextremely well -organized and you
can talk about the taximplications, et cetera, it's
going to give you an advantageover the competition.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, specifically in
today's market, right, wherethere's so many unknowns and you
kind of need to have that securityof it.
In terms of building right now,like what are people's biggest
(28:10):
mistakes?What are trends?
I guess trends are basically juststagnant.
No one's doing anything right now.
We're going European.
We're going European.
Yeah.
Yeah.
True.
And Asian influence for sure.
yeah and agent influence yeah i
think biggest mistakes people makethat's i think a pretty simple
answer i guess in terms of we'retalking about like a custom home
it's just not having like an openand honest communication up front
with your builder and that couldbe on the client or that could be
on the builder so You know, if thebuilder's not being honest about
(28:31):
how much it's actually going tocost, that's going to lead to big
problems once the product'sunderway or how long the project's
going to take.
So that's also not a good start.
And then for the client, if theclient's not being open and honest
with how much they realisticallyand comfortably want to spend,
it's not good.
And then also if they're not being
honest with how long they thinkthe product's going to take or,
you know, certain features that Icall them like must have features
for the client.
(28:51):
If they're not, you know, telling
the contractor that.
It's just going to be kind of a
rocky road right from the start.
And then also just probably not
choosing the right builder.
Interesting, like Kelowna, when we
go to these award shows, there areso many good builders in Kelowna.
Like the quality of these awardshow of the photos and of the
projects that you see peoplebuilding, it's just like it's jaw
dropping.
So tons of exceptional builders
and developers in Kelowna.
(29:13):
So lots of good options.
But you want to make sure whenyou're choosing your builder, like
make sure that you.
trust them.
Obviously it's going to be amassive investment.
So make sure you have a lot oftrust in that person, especially
if it's like a cost plus job,right?
Cause you have the trust that allthese invoices are for their
house.
And then, you know, there's a
markup added to that.
And then you have to like them
(29:34):
too, right?Like you're going to spend seven,
eight months to three or fouryears with this person.
So make sure that you like themand you get along with them.
And then I always recommend likeask a ton of questions.
And that builder should have ananswer to every single question.
You know, no questions asked.
They should not hesitate.
And, you know, make sure that youtalk to the clients that they
built for or, you know, you visittheir job sites that they have on
(29:57):
the go.
Like, are the job sites well
organized?Are they clean?
Do they have job sites on the go?So all things like that.
So just have open and honestcommunication.
Otherwise, you can get derailed.
pretty quickly.
Yeah.
I feel like a huge one there,
which I don't know if people do ornot, but it's like, Hey, can I
come walk through a home you'rebuilding right now?
Like, you know, why would you notdo that?
(30:19):
Do you get most clients looking todo that?
A hundred percent.
hundred percent.
Yeah.
Like I actually take a lot of
clients through my personal homejust to show them like what I did
personally in terms of features,where I spent the money, where I
didn't spend the money is almostequally important.
And we'll take them throughprojects that are underway or
projects that are similar to theirown.
Right.
Or if we're talking to them about
a, Hey, you should do this coolfeature.
(30:40):
Lots of people are doing this.
So I think you're going to love
this.
We can take them through one of
the projects and have them walkthrough it and see it in person.
So just trying to add value andmake sure the person gets the best
result at the end of the day.
Yeah.
Do you get a lot of like self-enjoyment for like walking
through, like handing the keysover?
Like, is that kind of the reasonwhy you like to build is seeing
(31:02):
like a client come in and be like,Oh man, this is my dream home.
Man, that's a fascinatingquestion.
I project managed for probablyeight or nine years.
And now, like I alluded toearlier, I'm pretty much primarily
in the office.
I have project managers now.
So I'm not on site a ton.
I miss that.
I miss being able to hand the keysto the clients.
I guess I could.
(31:23):
I could overrule my project
manager and tell me.
Give me those.
I'm having a bad day.
I want to feel better.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But no, so yeah, the projectmanagers hand over the keys and
they get the glory, right?It's like real estate agents and
mortgage brokers.
like real estate agents and
mortgage brokers.
I mostly now, like my job is
managing people, right?It's just teaching, training and
trusting and delegating, right?To the people that I have in
place.
Yeah.
I love that answer.
Okay.
Well, we got to start getting intoour wrap up.
(31:45):
part here.
So I'll just dive into it.
I feel like Matt and I have askedus 10 different ways.
So just give us the answer.
If you could buy property in the
next 12 months in the Okanagan,what would it be?
So one of my life goals actuallygrowing up was to at one point
live on the water in OkanaganLake.
Cause I was like, you know what,if you can do that, you know, like
(32:05):
you've made it right.
Like you're going to live this
Okanagan lifestyle.
You're going to be walking off
your dock on the boat and doingall the great things.
But in 2019, we bought a lot inLakeview Heights, like a view lot
in Lakeview Heights and a newlittle subdivision that actually
the Bylandons developed and justcompletely love it.
Like we love every bit of it.
We love the location.
We love the privacy.
We love the old growth, the
neighborhood, the amenities closeby.
(32:25):
We've got, you know, you'reliterally driving through
vineyards to get to your house.
Nestor's, we've got a little
bakery there.
Beautiful view.
And it's a great spot to raiseyour family.
We're on a cul -de -sac.
So for me.
My dream, I've put the otherdream.
It's no longer a dream.
And we want to buy like a legacy
property in Lakeview Heights,private, big, and I want to tear
something down.
And then I want to build a nice
house for us and actually acarriage house.
And I've already kind of talked myin -laws into moving into the
(32:47):
carriage house.
Awesome.
I have the floor plans and I havethe renderings and they're
actually saved on my desktop.
So I see these floor plans every
day.
So it will happen.
I'm willing it into existence.
So I love that.
It's only a month of time.
Matt, you were way farther ahead
to your dream than most of ourother guests when we asked that
question.
than most of our other guests when
we asked that question.
Yeah, like financially invested
and it's going to happen.
like financially invested and it's
(33:08):
going to happen.
Yeah.
Well, and Lakeview is such a greatarea.
It is a nice area.
That's it.
It's the Kitsilano of Kelowna,man.
Like we can literally rip downtownin six minutes.
But then at the same time, we havethis like private large piece of
property.
Like it's just unbeatable.
Yeah.
Great.
That's awesome.
All right.
If you could give your 20 -year-old self any advice.
(33:28):
What are you saying?Embrace failure.
failure.
Nice.
I think generally, thinkgenerally, even just speaking for
myself, you know, no one likesbeing bad at things and no one
likes failing at things or lookingsilly in front of other people.
And I think because of that, weavoid, you know, pursuing our
dreams.
We avoid trying new things.
And I think it just holds us backin so many ways and so many
aspects of life.
(33:48):
If you can embrace failure and
know that it's actually necessaryto be successful, you have to fail
a lot of times.
I literally all, all my
businesses, we fail every day.
It's like, okay, how can we not do
that again?Let's iterate.
Let's put some procedures inplace.
Let's not make that mistake again,but you're failing all the time,
but that's just part of success,right?
I just quickly want to say, Ilistened to a podcast a year ago.
We all have young kids.
(34:09):
So this is important.
The lady was saying how, insteadof asking her kids when they got
home from school, you know, whatwas the best part of your day?
What did you succeed at today?She would ask them, what was the
thing that you failed at today?And I just thought that was so
cool because.
She was like normalizing failure,
right?Saying that like, hey, this is
normal.
This is good.
This is good to fail.
(34:30):
And she said after a few months,
the kids would get home and belike, oh, you wouldn't believe how
badly I screwed up the whole day.
And she said it like.
No, you're getting a call.
Yeah, but she became this thing
like all the kids would try tooutdo each other's failures.
And I just think that'sincredible.
That's something I want to passdown to my kids.
That's interesting.
I just think if you want to be
(34:50):
successful, you've got to realizethat you are going to fail.
normal.
This is good.
This is No, you're Like a lot.
It's unavoidable.
Yeah.
I don't know if I listen to the
same podcast, but I've definitely,I've heard that as well.
And yeah, I love that.
What's your favorite charity or
how do you get back?We get involved with the clone of
Santas.
get involved with the clone of
Santas.
So we'll do like these Christmas
hampers, like these customChristmas hampers every winter for
(35:13):
families that are in need.
It's actually an incredibly like
emotional experience.
They introduce you to a couple of
families and there's kind of alist of items that they can't
afford to have.
Get those items together and you
can deliver them to the family.
And it's pretty powerful.
We'll do like Thanksgiving fooddrives and such and get food and
donate some groceries and whatnot.
And then actually my right hand on
my construction manager, he's gotthree boys in hockey.
So I swear we must sponsor likeevery hockey team and every
sweater and everything throughoutthe entire Okanagan.
(35:33):
I wrote the young gentleman's namedown just like.
Two weeks ago, we have sponsoredMaverick McCarthy.
I think he's like a 12 -year -old.
Apparently, he's an absolute stud.
Oh, yeah.
He's trying to make the NHL.
Apparently, he's like the bestdefenseman in Western Canada.
I don't know.
Yeah.
But, you know, trying to make theNHL, it's expensive probably to do
so.
So, we just put some money in and
hopefully he makes it.
Sweet.
Remember that name.
(35:54):
Remember that name.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, maybe we should have him onthe podcast before he makes it
big, you know?Get him on the pod, right?
right?Maybe we should have him on our
team.
Matt's trying to spice up a hockey
league for us to get into him.
He's only 12.
Hey, man, he's got to skate betterthan us.
He'll definitely be way betterthan us.
He's probably huge.
Yeah, who knows?
He's on the creatine for sure.
(36:15):
than us.
He'll He's on the creatine forsure.
Well, absolutely.
He's on the protein diet for sure.
Yeah, that's awesome.
All right.
How can Taylor or I or ourlistener help you?
What can we do for you?If you guys want to check out our
websites, we're handhhomes ca, all spelled out.
So it's a cool spot to check outour projects that we've done
before and see some more awards,contact numbers on there and our
emails on there.
We're on Facebook and Instagram
under H &H Homes and OkanaganInfel as well for both those
companies.
(36:35):
So if anyone wants to reach out,
stop by the office or give us acall, honestly, in a 10 or 15
minute conversation, we can answera lot of people's questions and
let them know if what they'rethinking about is feasible, you
know, how much is going to cost.
cost to build and how long it's
going to take.
Yeah.
Or we just go with a weighted walkwith you, you know, I'll jump on
your back and we'll just do lapsaround the mission and throw on
(36:58):
the rucksack.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right, man.
Well, thank you for coming on.
It's been a long time coming and
yeah, I appreciate you.
So yeah.
on.
Yeah.
Thanks guys.
Yeah.
If you see me, uh, walking aroundlower mission there, a hunched
over with a backpack, give me ahonk or a wave.
Right.
And we'll all avoid any puddles if
it's raining.
we'll all avoid any puddles if
it's raining.
Yeah.
I got you there.
All right.
Thanks Jeff.
We'll see you around, man.
(37:18):
Appreciate it.
Cheers guys.
Appreciate it.
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