Among my builder buddies in the construction community, there’s always a conversation about volume. Is it better to be a custom home builder or a production builder, or perhaps something else altogether?

Of course that really boils down to the individual builder and what makes them happy. Many choose to try to scale up in volume, which, in this industry, is quite challenging to do. It’s easy for things to go wrong, for overhead to accumulate at greater rates than anticipated, and for market projections to be inaccurate. They call the real estate industry a “Boom or bust” industry for a reason!

For me personally I prefer a lower quantity of higher-quality builds. I’m personally very involved in many of the builds and while all of our work is subbed out to qualified contractors, there are a few elements I still do myself. A couple of examples would be building the window sill pans and our air sealing procedures before insulation goes in.

I’ve found it incredibly difficult to communicate theory to any of our subcontractors, even the really good contractors that take their time and do the job right. For many of them, to truly get them to grasp theory is a bit of a challenge at times. I view that as being on my shoulders, to make sure proper theory is actually implemented in the field. In high volume that would be incredibly challenging to do. This is why, in a typical year, I only build somewhere between three and five houses. For the time being I don’t see that changing.

I have a lot of fun building. I like being hands-on with my owners and I enjoy the engineering side of construction. By the time I hit 10 or more houses per year, I don’t think I could maintain that level of touch that I like.