What is Owners Representation?
Join the latest episode of Around the Drafting Table to learn more about Owners Representation. In this episode, I am joined by Cabot Wooley of Fullsten. Together, he and I delve into why Owners Representation might be right for you or your clients. The whole episode is linked below, and I encourage you to listen in. We go into more depth, and over far more questions, but if your time is short here are a few highlights:
K: What problem does an owner’s representative actually solve?
C: When I look at my clients, I have clients that typically fall into three different categories, and sometimes they’re in all three. So the first is that someone that doesn’t live here locally. Building for them is something that is hundreds or even thousands of miles away, and it’s disquieting to not have that proximity to the project that you’re spending a lot of money on, right? And so me, in my role, I’m at that proximity and the eyes and the ears and the boots on the ground for the client. So that’s number one.
Number two is the client that, frankly, just doesn’t have time to do this themselves. A lot of people that are building homes at the level that are going in now in Park City and the Wasatch-back, they’re people that are very busy, right? And so they are still running their own companies, and to take hundreds and even thousands of hours sometimes to manage the project or even be involved, not even manage it, but just to be involved in the project at a deeper level is something that many, many clients just simply can’t do, and so I solve that for them.
And then the third one is the person that’s done this before, and they say, I am never doing this again.
K: What does proactive coordination look like versus reactive problem-solving on Wasatch Back projects?
C: Let me give you one example that I’ve run into that I think is a great example. I’ve been working on a couple of homes that are built right on a ski-in-ski-out slope of the Deer Valley Ski Resort. And one of these jobs, the first time I went out to look at the site, I saw that the ski resort was installing snow guns to make the snow so that these could be ski-in-ski-out. There’s a path that passes right below the home, and these guns were being placed at about 20 feet away from the corners of the home.
These are loud. I mean, they’re very close to the run, and so there’s only a few places that they can put them, but these are really, really loud. So, I asked the team, hey, what’s the plan for the sound attenuation on the windows? And the answer was, well, we don’t really have a plan for that.
These are triple-pane windows. They’re coming in from Europe. And I said, well, I’d like to see what the sound rating on them is.
So, I got that sound rating. The sound rating was appropriate for a triple-pane window, but it’s certainly not going to block out the sound every single night as snow is being blown.
So, I said, you know what, we really need to go back and look at a soundproof window, and I realized that these are going to be more expensive, but I guarantee that no one’s going to want to be in this house and stay overnight in this house once these things are going, if we don’t take care of that. So we went, we were able to double the amount of sound attenuation that we have on the windows, and this is done through laminating the glass panes and then adding radon in between each of the panels, but we were able to double that, which is really significant. Now, the price of that went up by 20 to 30% to put those type of windows in.
So, here’s an example, going back to your original question, like what’s proactive versus reactive? Well, proactive is going, figuring out how we do that, and yes, our budget increased by 30% on these windows, but I’m-
K: 30% just on the windows and just on the windows facing those machines. So, it’s not like 30% of the overall price of the home, just a little bump really.
C: That’s right. Versus ripping out those windows after the fact, if you realize them, it would have been five times as expensive for the entire window package. So, I think that communication, that early planning, getting together with the construction teams.
And so, all the projects that I’m on, we have a weekly meeting with the builder, with the architect, with the interior designer, so that we all make sure that we’re talking about all of those issues.
We’re hitting them way in advance. And there’s an open forum constantly because something that may be really important to an interior designer, like having those shades hidden, may not be something that the builder is necessarily thinking about. They’re just following plans in terms of what that ceiling needs to look like according to those plans.
And so that planning is critically important.
K: What’s one assumption homeowners should let go of before starting a mountain home build?
C: I think that one of the things that they should let go of is that everything can go according to plan. And I think a lot of people walk into a situation hearing horror stories about things taking much longer or budgets going way higher than they had originally planned.
I think generally speaking, things can go off plan pretty rapidly. And we’ve talked about many examples already during our conversation here. But I think that one of the things that I try to bring to the table is an understanding of how we are going to stick to that budget and creative ways that the teams can work together to stay on budget.
So the assumption that people make is that they should just let go of is that things are going to go according to plan. The reality is, is that things are going to change all the time, but the assumption that what I try to, in terms of bringing that, that assumption back so that they can kind of keep that close, if you will, is to make sure that we’re making the right decisions on where to spend that budget and where we could get away with maybe spending less on other areas. And typically, what you find it’s called value engineering in the industry. But what you typically find is that you can be very successful at value engineering certain components of a house without losing those things that are really important to making it a luxury home.
K: If someone is considering building in Promontory or Red Ledges right now, what’s one piece of advice you’d give them before they choose their team?
C: Before they choose the team, I think it’s really important that they pick the architect that they want to work with and that they define the scope with the architect. I mentioned that at the very beginning, but getting the architect that’s going to deliver what they want, their vision, and then making sure that the scope is clear as to how much the architect is going to do versus how much is going to be left to the builder and the interior designer. Once you know that, then it’s appropriate to go out and find a builder who can build to whatever those plans are.
And I think selecting a builder that is able to look at the plans, is able to give you an accurate estimate based on those plans. I think that’s the right way to bring this on. So, I’d pick your architect first, and then I’d go with your builder and the rest of the team.
K: So, what defines a healthy working relationship between everyone and yourself?
C: I think one is mutual respect. I think that goes for any business relationship. So that’s maybe a little not specific to building, but I think that everyone coming to the table and feeling like they are part of a team is critically important. And again, I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but that’s a very difficult thing to do without someone that’s centralized, that’s leading that team.
I think various teams will do their best to work well with each other, but builders don’t want to come in and be the, hey, I am the leader of this team. The architect doesn’t want to come in and say, I’m going to, you know, they want to preserve the relationships of the people that they’re working with. A lot of times the interior designer ends up being that person because they’re the ones that are talking maybe most with the owner.
But I think that again, just one of the many ways that I can provide significant value as an owner’s rep and an owner’s rep should provide is to be able to come in and say, hey, I’m part of this team and my role is to help all of you be as efficient as you possibly can. I want to take care of the things that aren’t related to building for you, Mr. Builder. I don’t want to take away from your time, interior designer, to do things that aren’t moving the interior design forward.
So, I pick up a lot of those things that allows these team members to focus on what they’ve specifically been hired to do. And so, it’s a win, win, win. The owner wins, and the individual team win, and the project wins overall.
K: In your experience, what types of Wasatch back homeowners benefit the most from an owner’s rep? And when is it almost irresponsible not to have one?
C: If an owner doesn’t have the time or the expertise, you know, if this is their first home or if they’re very busy, it really hurts their process and slows down their process to not be immediately responsive to the teams that are trying to build for them.
And that tends to be the biggest issue is when decisions have to be made, then the owner is not available to make those decisions or takes a long time that can really, really slow down the process. My goal as an owner’s rep, and, and I don’t know that I’ve ever not achieved this is to fully pay for myself many times over. So not just saving the headache of building and the stress of building, which is, I think are real components to my service.
In terms of identifying issues really early on, having coordinating the teams so that they can make informed decisions as a group pays for itself in spades because we, the most of the costs that it escalates on a, on a construction project is because of poor communication or because the right people weren’t involved in making that decision.
So, it’s fixing things or it’s having to add onto things to get back to the original intent. And so I really do believe that if going back to my original things, if you don’t live here locally and, or you are really busy and can’t invest in the hundreds of hours that it will take to build your home and, or you’ve done this before and you think I never want to do this again, then you absolutely need to have an owner’s rep like me.
K: Is there one thing you wish every homeowner understood about owner representation before starting a project?
C: I think the one thing that, that I wish that they understood is how much better a project will go when there is someone that’s on it.
And if it’s not them, then having an experienced owner’s rep will save them time, money, and ensure that they have a quality home when they’re finished. And I just, I can’t overemphasize the reality of that. I’m, this isn’t a sales pitch.
I really truly believe that my services and, and owner’s rep services are, are extremely valuable. And as I said before, they pay for themselves.