The Trailer Diva

The great news about deciding to build a new home these days is that you have options and choices like never before.

Current technology has made it possible to build “Factory Built” housing that not only meets the quality that site built housing offers, but in many cases can exceed the quality and value that is available.

For the next few weeks I’m going to go more in-depth about the different choices, and how they compare. The building types that I’m going to review are the following:

Trailers
Mobile Homes
Manufactured Homes
Park Models
Double Wides
Modular Homes
PreFab Homes
Panelized Kit Homes
SIPS Homes (Structural Insulated Panels)

Please let me know if you have interest in other building processes and I’ll be happy to do the research and share it here.

This has been an interesting week - lots of battles being fought and on the good side reconnecting with great role models.

After getting an SOS from my sister that’s building a stunning home in Oklahoma I headed up 35 to see how I could help. From the beginning it’s been obvious that we are sisters - she and her husband didn’t want a home that was like every one on the block. They wanted one that embraced old and new, had character just like their family definitely does, and was full of the love and craftsmanship our parents brought us up in. This wasn’t a project they took on as a whim - finding the right lot and the right components has been a decade long search. They were also looking for partners in the process that could share their passion and to be honest they had no issues with compensating people for their time and involvement. As a person and as a professional there isn’t one thing that I would have done any differently than they did.

When interviewing builders they spent over a year talking to other consumers that had built in the area, visiting homes built by various builders and almost gave up on being able to find the right partner. Finally they found one that said the right things and was as anxious to get started as they were.

Fast forward almost two years, and my sister is still waiting for the home to be completed. It’s become the nightmare that we all hear about - the builder is never around and with subcontractors that have no supervision or guidance my sister is having to take on pretty much the builders role to move the house forward.

So much comes down to attitude - her family is very sensitive to smoke and they discovered one day that the trim carpenters had been smoking in the house… a lot. They asked then not to smoke in the house because of the health issues and yet the contractors continued to - never even stepped outside to indulge in something that has been proven to be a health hazzard to them as well as everyone around them. Plus the fact that the painters were working in the house with very flammable stains and lacquers. If the builder had been around to see this it should have been his responsibility to handle this with HIS subs and to be sure that the work was being done on time and with the craftmanship that was promised.

As someone who makes their living in the home building industry, I’m embarrassed to have people like this call themselves professionals, and it’s people like this who hurt all of us. My sister and her family are ending up paying a very heavy price - instead of getting to spend as much time as she would like to with her family and her husband’s business she is having to manage subs and do the work that they have paid others to do. Sadly, I think if they knew how much building a home was going to affect their quality of life for this many years they might not have ventured down that road.

Fortunately there have been bright spots. It’s a family trait / curse that we don’t ask people to do anything that we wouldn’t do ourselves and many times we work right along side the people we’ve hired and frienships evolve. One of those is a soul that there aren’t even words to describe -someone who has given his time, his sources, and his treasures to make my sisters home as special as they had hoped. He has understood their vision (unlike their builder) and has discovered architectural components that have been around for hundreds of years and will continue to have a place of honor in their home. Their stone work is a masterpiece and you can tell it is a labor of love as is the pool complete with it’s own grotto.

I’m sure I’ll be adding to this subject in the future. What this has taught me is that it doesn’t matter if your new home costs $20,000 or $2,000,000 - every family and every home deserves to be treated with respect and with the quality we would expect if we were building it for ourselves.

When people walk model homes I’ve merchandised often I get the comment that their own home could never look as great as the model. Not true! Everything that I use in a model home is available to anyone - the “trick” is to develop your own group of sources and to search out things that appeal to your own lifestyle and tastes.

As a Lifestylist, a lot of my job when merchandising model homes is to do the research on who the potential buyer is for that home, and discover what their needs and dreams are. That often takes me to amazing places - national parks, museums, missions, estate sales and flea markets. Finding things that are unique to the area are what give a model personality and make the potential buyer feel at home.

I’ve launched Lifestylist Design to be able to design products for anyone that are similar to the one of a kind objects I’ve found for my homes.

I saw this quote in a wonderful ad by Brandon homefurnishings. It shows a photo of a chameleon and talks about adapting to furnitures’ new retailing environment. With as quickly as our world is changing these days, our ability to adapt and evolve can mean the difference between being successful or extinct.

Today’s consumer has an increasingly short attention span. If your product doesn’t offer them what they feel they need and are looking for was well as being an exceptional value, they’ll keep looking until they find someone that does.

Make time every day to search out emerging trends and “what’s hot” in your market. One of my favorite tools is Google’s Alert service. This is available at no charge and is an easy way to be in the know on any subject that is important to you. It’s also a wonderful way to monitor what is being written about you and your company. A company has numerous times has used my trademark Lifestylist without my permission. By using the Google Alert service I’m able to see when my trademark is being used by someone other than me many times.

It isn’t always about how much you spend, but how much you think. Learn to use the resources available to you and success will follow.

There is nothing I enjoy as much as getting together with a talented group of people and sharing ideas on homebuilding. The Southern Arizona Homebuilders Association in Tucson, Arizona asked me to be an instructor for their Institute of Residential Marketing course last month, and I jumped at the chance.

When we all work together we will all succeed, and this group was very giving with their successes and challenges. Individuals from Oregon, California, Nevada and Arizona attended so there were viewpoints from all over the West Coast.

As a Lifestylist(r), I like to stress how important it is to make a model home feel like a home that someone wants to live in - not just a designer showhouse. It should be filled with vignettes of hobbies, dreams and Lifestyles that the potential new homeowner might experience in their new home. It truly is about Living the Dream.

It was really fun to open up the classes eyes as to what Patriot Homes and Manufactured Housing is now bringing to the market. There are still companies that build “shade and shelter single wides” but more offerings are out there for great looking workforce housing that is achievably priced. As the labor force gets smaller and smaller, it will make even more sense to build homes in a central, protected environment.