98: Adapting to Market Challenges & Diversifying for Success with H&H Custom Homes' Jeff Houghton

Taylor Atkinson: Welcome back to the Colonial Real Estate Podcast. I'm your mortgage broker host, Taylor Atkinson.

Matt Glen: And I'm your real estate agent host, Matt Glen. What's shaking today? How was the run?

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. My legs are shaking. Yeah. Run's good. I don't know.

Matt Glen: You're, like, the fittest guy.

Taylor Atkinson: I know. Yes. 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? Twenty one k? Yeah. Yeah. It only took me six hours.
No. Yeah. It was an hour and fifty, so I was pretty happy.

Matt Glen: That's pretty good. Yeah. Because I know the ten k, like, you kinda wanna get under an hour. So, like, more than double under two hours, that's pretty good. Yeah.
So

Taylor Atkinson: And then, like, Vancouver, man, you kind of forget. We haven't been there in a while. Like, it's a courtesy. Really? It's kinda fun.
Like, took Leo to the women's professional soccer team there. The Rise was very soccer game, did the aquarium, just yeah. It was cool to get out and you kind of forget what a big city feels like and then you come back to cloning and you're like, it's tiny, but we're getting there.

Jeff Houghton: You know,

Taylor Atkinson: there's a kind of big buildings going out.

Matt Glen: Yep. Born by the second.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. How are you guys doing?

Matt Glen: Good. Good. I have not done any half marathons or half marathons, but doing good, dude. Adjusting for life with two kids. Going from one kid, to two kids is an extraordinary difference.
Like, it's not twice as hard. It's like at least five or six times as hard.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. In, like, six months, you'll forget what one kid was like, though. You'll just this will be the new norm.

Matt Glen: Oh, exactly. Alrighty. Like, we're three months in whenever and it's already getting to that point. So

Taylor Atkinson: yeah.

Matt Glen: Just an adjustment, but it's been awesome. Yeah. It's not because either the kids are difficult to do. They just have different needs at different times and yeah. That's just hard.
So but it's been also extremely rewarding. So

Taylor Atkinson: That's sweet. Well, summertime's here, so now it's just naked baby time. You know, you let them run around, no diapers, and see. Yeah. That's good stuff.

Matt Glen: Yeah. I like it.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. Well, our guest also has two kids. We were talking to Jeff Houghton from H and H Homes. Okanagan infill. He's got a handful of arms of the business, 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. So he he really knows the numbers and knows how to make it work. Another great guy from Boushary. Feel like half of our, I guess, for some reason, have been from Boushary, which I just love.
But, yeah. So I'm I'm known Jeff for ages. Yeah. He gets some wicked products out there. They've won a bunch of awards and I love this show.
It's great.

Matt Glen: I did do. It was just really great getting his perspective because he's just in at all. Right? Doing all the things real estate. It was very good to talk to him.
He's a great guy.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. I think the takeaway here is, like, you know, real estate, it's not just one shoe fits all and you're gonna be successful if you just do this one thing for the next thirty years. Like, you have to adapt and pivot specifically now. And Jeff's obviously doing that, you know, some things are profitable for a few years and and then it dries up and you're on to the next until, you know, government policy changes or tariffs or whatever happens. But, yeah, lots of good information on this one.
So you guys are gonna like it

Matt Glen: better with that one hundred percent. Also, growth per Corona L. By the time the show gets released, do you have, like, eight hours Maybe even less to vote for us. Like, well yeah.

Taylor Atkinson: We're not the best at collecting votes, but it would mean a lot to us. So we got nominated, but now you gotta vote for us to to take the gold home. So

Matt Glen: That's podcast in Kelown. Last year, we won bronze. So we'd really like the gold

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. Or silver, whatever, I'll take it. I

Matt Glen: thought. Our Broad is good. I'd Broad is pretty cool.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. But, yeah, it's it's kind of a tricky one to vote. You gotta go on Kelowna now and then scroll down to media and best podcast. So, yeah, appreciate the support on that

Matt Glen: one, guys. Yeah. Thank you very much. Thanks for last year too. Yeah.
This episode, like, every episode sponsored by Century twenty one Assurance Realty. Best Brookridge in Nokanagan. 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 and love to talk to you. See if we could work out for each other. Join the show.

Taylor Atkinson: Okay. Jeff Houghton from H and H Homes. How's it going, man?

Jeff Houghton: Hey, thank you for having me guys. Appreciate

Matt Glen: it going on, man.

Taylor Atkinson: So we just like to start our show with what's your perfect Friday look like other than, you know, you and I running into each other at day care drop off. What else did you do on Fridays?

Jeff Houghton: Get to know me here in short order. I'm a pretty regimented and disciplined person. So normal Friday actually worked out seven days a week, five AM during the weekdays, and six AM on the weekends. And I don't really miss a day, so

Taylor Atkinson: Doing pretty nice.

Jeff Houghton: And then typical guy workouts. A lot of weight lifting and very little stretching your cardio. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a week starting.
Yeah. And I did realize, like, even though I'm in construction about ninety five percent of time in front of a computer, So I didn't get many steps in any particular days. I'm maybe three, four, five thousand steps a day. And I'd read a documentary on these blue zones. If you guys got those where?

Matt Glen: Yes. I had a long life. Yep. Yeah.

Jeff Houghton: It was, like, a direct correlation between the average steps you take each day and the longevity of your life. So I was like, man, I'm not in all these weights, but I better better get my steps. And so I also after lunch hour, strategically, I do a walk, a forty five minute walk. Every day as well.

Matt Glen: Nice.

Jeff Houghton: Nice. And I'm in a flat area in Laurel mission, so I now do a weighted walk. So a walk Nice. Forty or fifty or sixty pounds in my back. So that kinda helps the cardio, helps get me my steps in and then kinda gives me that afternoon burst of energy that I need from staying in an office all day.
And it also helps you to adjust your food.

Matt Glen: Nice. If I do the same thing, I just slot my kids on my back, though, and

Jeff Houghton: Oh, wait. Yeah. Probably eight weeks.

Matt Glen: Two years and seven weeks.

Jeff Houghton: Oh, man. We're all we're all in sick of it. Right?

Matt Glen: Yes. Yes. But, yeah, we live in McKinley of the hills everywhere and, like, every time I go for a walk, I have someone strapped to me. Yeah.

Jeff Houghton: And then lately, I might get a kick of this, but I wait one ninety, so I'm trying to do a hundred and ninety grams of protein per day. I feel that's, like, on trend right now. Yep. It's honestly like a full time job because you can only you only wanna eat like forty grams per meal. So you gotta space it out to like five meals.
So lots of beef, lots of eggs, and then fruits and vegetables. And I pretty much cut alcohol to zero carbs to zero. I feel way better after cutoff carbs and, like, zero junk foods. So pretty regimented, pretty routine. And then in terms of just the perfect Friday, as you guys know as young kids, their long weeks and sometimes the weekends are busier.
So the first Friday is, like, it's probably to bed pretty early. Like, maybe a family barbecue in the bed and get ramped up for the weekend.

Matt Glen: Getting ready for your six AM workout.

Jeff Houghton: Yeah. Right? No.

Taylor Atkinson: Well, hey. Something on the health side, not that this is a health show, but doctor Rhonda Patrick, she just got out her hundredth episode, long episodes on podcast. Like, she's, like, over two hours and, like, very sophisticated. But a lot of research recently shown on creatine for not just muscles, but like brain, bones. Maybe incorporate some of that, but one interesting fact on that not to get really sidetracked, but there is quite a bit of data to show recovery on concussions and prevention on concussions.
Like, that's how much it affects

Matt Glen: the blood and cream team.

Jeff Houghton: Yeah.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. Yeah. Give it a listen. Show it to Dr. Ron Patrick.

Jeff Houghton: Yeah. Yes. I think cream team everyday and then collagen as well every day. Good source collagen. Nano.
Oh, dude. But creatine, you gotta watch out. I think I gained, like, sixteen pounds of water weight when I originally hopped on it. We hold a lot more water. That kind of pierce off.

Matt Glen: But

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. Talking about work, like, I've known you for a long time, and I've always known that you've had h n h homes, custom homes, mostly single family. Only recently, you know, I've seen Okanagan infill on the side of your truck. Chatni a bit this winter. I see you're up at Big White as well.
You're in a lot of different areas and assets. Can you kind of touch over the umbrella of your company or build inside?

Jeff Houghton: Yeah. I love to. So H and H Holmes actually incorporate that company in my second year of university. So I'm six. Didn't really get on the tools until I graduated in two thousand and eight, which was a interesting time to start.
Right?

Matt Glen: Yeah. Like it

Jeff Houghton: was, yeah, super deflated and super depressed. But a good time to start because I kinda got to, like, hand pick all the trades that I wanted everyone to slow Yeah. So that didn't build a really nice team combining. I'm still using, like, ninety percent of those trades today, which is kinda neat.

Taylor Atkinson: Nice.

Jeff Houghton: But, yeah, so the h and h custom homes, so that's single family custom homes. And We do some spec homes as well. So that's been going for sixteen years. And we've done about a hundred and twenty homes. And then we do renovations, and we do some, like, commercial leasehold improvements as well.
Yeah. We've won renovation of the year, home of the year, and builder of the year. As well. So that's been a successful company. Thank you.
As you guys can speak to, you can kinda see the trend, especially in Colin, going toward, like, densification infill projects. So I had met a guy in two thousand nineteen that was really interested in getting the infill going and So we started to company Okan infill. What kind of niche? So we do, like, two, three, four plexes, but kind of on the higher end side, kind of, you know, bigger square footage, higher end. Just stuff where you don't see a lot of it in the Okanagan.
Kinda got that niche product.

Taylor Atkinson: Are they stratified? Are you selling them off? Or is it, like, a rental portfolio after?

Jeff Houghton: Yeah. So in this company, they're all stratified and all sold off. Okay. Yeah. And then I've got a big white development company where we bought a chunk of land.
It's part of the the Sundance Strata, the Big White. So we bought some residual land. So last year, we built five units. We built a single family in two duplex. And then right now, we're just finishing off.
We're doing a fourplex. And then we have have a piece of property that is actually touching the base of, like, the bullet chairlift. So we own, like, a little piece of property there too, which is pretty exciting. Yeah. So we do the developing and the building up there.
And then I also have a holding company. We do purpose built rentals. So right now, we're building a purpose built rental duplex, sync like the ice on Crestview Drive 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, like, nicer older homes.
We'll do a renovation and put those into the portfolio as well. I think it's important to diversify, right, especially as it

Taylor Atkinson: gets slower. So, you know,

Jeff Houghton: right now, the construction industry is a little bit slower. We'll see what happens with the interest rates here. But when it's slower, okay, we can just pivot and let's keep all our stuff busy. Let's keep our guys busy. We'll build this rental duplex with legal suites.
Right?

Taylor Atkinson: That is awesome. So there's, like, two huge takeaways there. I think you got so many people, not just this industry, but a lot of industries, but specifically, you see it more in this industry. Given advice, that aren't really doing it themselves, you know, like real estate agents, mortgage brokers, builders, whatever that don'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, like you said, being able to pivot and diversify. Again, a lot of people in the industry that will just sit there and be like, oh, yeah. The times are tough. Like, you know, I'm not making money and I gotta do layoffs. But if you have the ability to adapt like you're doing and be diversified, like, that's the only way to succeed on it.

Jeff Houghton: Touching back to that, like, starting out in o eight, it was extremely slowly. You couldn't even put the keys into a front door of a house and have someone just take the house. Right? Like, I think it took us eleven months to sell, like, the first spec house that I built. You know, kinda having survived those times when it gets slow.
Like, right now, like, you've got a full tool kit that you can use. Right? Like, you gotta cut back on your expenses. You gotta get creative. You gotta do other things.
So Yeah.

Taylor Atkinson: You seem like you have really good composure. Again, like, you know, it's normally a day care drop off. I'm seeing you where it's like, it is chaos. But I imagine it's similar to a build site. So, you know, you're carrying yourself very well.
You know, talking about stressful times, you know, we could touch on this a little bit like tariffs. What the tariffs do for your business right now? Obviously, like, there's a lot of uncertainty, a lot of unknowns. So we're not here to kind of give advice like this podcast gonna come out in a month from now. So probably a lot's gonna change.
But what do you have going on right now that it's affected?

Jeff Houghton: Yeah. I think the first thing you guys said is we just don't know. Sounds like the most important thing to go over with Trump. Obviously, he could decide that all these tariffs are off tomorrow and maybe the stock market rebounds, you know, the eight percent that it's gone down. We don't know.
But right now, there's a lot of pivoting in the supply chain, so we're being forced to use different materials just because the price increases have gone up so quickly. So any of you guys that know, like, James Hardie plank siding, which is a concrete based siding, that's your lap siding, your board of bat, and you see it literally on eighty percent of the homes, you know, and and actually on our big white projects too. They just raised last week prices across the board by about twenty five percent. And on an average home, like, on a three thousand square foot walkout rancher, that equates to, like, ten grand. Probably, ten or eleven grand.
There's also a Canadian company that manufactures called LTE SmartSide. 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 good product. So, like, everyone's pivoting over to them because they were similarly price to James Hardie.
But of course, then I just heard the grapevine that those prices I don't know whether it's they can't keep up with demand or that they've just decided that now they're under price, but apparently they're gonna do a huge price increase as well. So, you know, you just play in this game of cat and mouse, you know, and we're pivoting, but I don't know how much that's gonna work. How long to do that. Right?

Taylor Atkinson: Like, Matt and I spoke about that before trying to be optimistic about tariffs. I mean, like, this is such a great opportunity for Canadian based companies to go out and sell to other countries or or buy internally? Or even just other Canadians?

Jeff Houghton: Yeah.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. But this is a a prime example of 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, not saying LP is, but, you know, like, people are just going to end up inherently doing that if everything else goes up with inflation.

Matt Glen: It's funny that prices to market. Right? Right. Yeah.

Jeff Houghton: Yeah. Like, they could charge twenty percent more and probably still get ninety percent of the business. Right?

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff Houghton: I don't know what direction they're going, but yeah. I think that's, like, Trump's purpose of tariffs is to bring the manufacturing back. I get that.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah.

Jeff Houghton: Actually, probably in the long run, once everything settles down, it could be a really good thing for their country. We would be forced to do it as well. But there's gonna be a lot of growing pains in the meantime. Right? Like, we're not set up to just start manufacturing all these things tomorrow.
There's jargon. Right?

Taylor Atkinson: Well, yeah. It's like supply and demand in real estate. Right? There is not enough housing. Right?
You've had this housing shortage. This is a prime example of, like, you know, your cost directly has to go up and that has to be passed on to the end user now.

Jeff Houghton: Mhmm.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. I know, like, there's cost plus fixed like, if you're in any current contracts right now, like, what do you do? What is the end user homeowner? What can they expect out of this?

Jeff Houghton: The honest answer is that right now, we don't know. We're just gonna patiently wait. We'll probably wait for a couple weeks to see case, is Trump gonna repeal these? Are these here to stay? And then, like I said, it's a matter of just checking with the supply chain.
It's actually surprising. It seems like in construction, a lot of the stuff that we buy it seems to be we're gonna be okay. Like, So so far, you know, I think windows have gone up seven percent. We talked about the James Hardie. A lot of appliances come from the states.
We've got your whirlpools, your frigidaire, your kitchen aid, and investment in the states. So we can probably pick pivot to European and Chinese brands and probably pivot to your LGs.

Matt Glen: Every house will have a birthdays only range.

Jeff Houghton: Well, yeah. Yeah. The honest answer is I don't understand no. I think just each day, we're probably gonna know more. Yep.
But it's definitely gonna create more economic uncertainty, and it's gonna make more people probably wait on the sidelines even longer. Right?

Matt Glen: So you're in, like, such an interesting position here because you're building new homes, spec homes, custom homes, rental properties, infill? Where's the smart money going right now? Or where's the smartest money if there is any smart money? Do rental projects, pencil, spec homes, pencil? Like, how does this infill projects work out?
Like, what are your thoughts on that?

Taylor Atkinson: Where should we spend our money? I

Jeff Houghton: don't wanna make this too doom and gloom, but, yeah, like, spec houses don't really pencil Yeah. The multifamily. Like, I we just got approved this funny story. So we've got a nine plex to be designed and lower mission. We're super pumped about it.
It takes a long time in the design phase, so we don't we don't need to start it immediately, but We're talking to City of Kelowna doing our development permit, and there was twelve applications for new builds. And we were the only one of the twelve that we're actually gonna build and and try to sell the thing. The other eleven applications were all purpose built rentals.

Taylor Atkinson: Wow.

Jeff Houghton: Yeah. The smart money, as you mentioned earlier, a lot of the stuff you see in town, especially multifamily see that big wood frame structures like everywhere.

Matt Glen: Yes. And,

Jeff Houghton: you know, if you're like me, you're like who's moving into these things? They're all the same store fighters. They're all the same design. They all just looks like square boxes?

Matt Glen: Like, side note, but what are the all these things gonna look like in ten to twenty years? Like, this is, like, just cannot get over.

Jeff Houghton: Great question. That's all I mean.

Matt Glen: It's pretty right now, but, like, drive down Pandora's off the highway. And there's, like, twenty old apartment buildings that just looks like they're never gonna go anywhere. And that's kind of like the main corridor into the mission. It's just looking to look like that for eternity.

Jeff Houghton: Maybe a little short sighted. But, you know, when you look at something more than, like, a ten, twenty, thirty, forty, sixty plexus, so CMHC, which is a government program, they will lend the developer the money. They'll lend you up to ninety five percent loan to value and plus they'll amortize a project for forty or fifty years. Yeah. So, like, those projects pencil because you can get your renters in there.
Actually, you can even charge a builder's fee within your cost. Right? So that's why you're just seeing that ton of those projects going

Matt Glen: up this house. Right?

Jeff Houghton: Follow the money, follow the incentive, and then you can see the result. Right? Yeah. But, yeah, in terms of spec houses, not great right now unless you're, like, one point one and under. Right?
Is the GST break in now? Is this zero GST?

Matt Glen: Yeah. I think to a million right there.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah.

Jeff Houghton: And then the property purchase tax too, I think there's a break on that as well.

Matt Glen: So Yeah.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. Kinda back to the question of how to make money. Like, like, nothing's gonna make money. But in your infill company, like, can we talk a little bit about how to subdivide? Like, if someone has a single family home and they're like, you know, I have equity here.
I'm sitting on a half acre. I would love to do something with this and make a bit of cash and to densify and, you know, add units like the city of prep wants to do. High level time frame cost, like, if it's on a flat piece of land, do you guys do much of that? Like, how does that look?

Jeff Houghton: Yeah. So I'll qualify. I have a right hand man in the Oconon infill that, like, he loves zoning. 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 Fonsu in in Lower Mission, beautiful, beautiful streetholder area. His house was, like, shoved off to the side of a really big lot. And so, you know, we ended up just lopping off forty foot wide by a hundred foot deep lot right off the his side yard.

Matt Glen: Oh, nice.

Jeff Houghton: Pretty quick, simple, easy subdivision process. So realistically, you can do it with a builder, or in his case, he had already had the process started when we were talking to him. But you get a civil engineer and a servier is kinda how it starts. And, you know, you've gotta bring in new services and utilities You've get your property lines. Make sure that you meet all the city requirements.
The civil engineer will do that. Make sure you can build a house on the new piece of property, and then you just start an application with the city. So very generally, it takes about six to nine months. To subdivide. And I would say a hundred and forty to a hundred and seventy thousand type thing is the costs, kind of all in with your engineering, your utility upgrades, the CDCCs, etcetera.
It was super cool because he had an 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, and then he moved in the custom home and then sold the old home. And I think he did really well.
Finally enough, the value was old home, I don't think, went down at all. Because, you know, this offered a huge side yard with, like, this big tree on it. It wasn't serving a purpose. So when he lopped it off, we fenced his other yard, like, his rear yard, and I actually think the property is, like, more valuable without all the Atlanta. So

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. That is a good point. Like, you generally don't see values decrease that much when you're subdividing that. Yeah. To your knowledge, do you know any programs other than just happening to your own equity?
Like, how does somebody come up with a hundred and forty to a hundred and seventy grand to subdivide. Like, knowing there's profit on the other 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?

Jeff Houghton: Well, shouldn't that be a question for you?

Matt Glen: Yeah. Yeah. No. Because, Matt, I heat myself up well

Jeff Houghton: there. Yeah.

Taylor Atkinson: I am. Exactly. Yeah. So if you call me directly, I'll be JV in these. Yeah.
Well, it was kind of a plug to say, like, I personally feel like that's a missed opportunity for for government funding. Like, if we're coming out with all these other you know, multifamily stuff, like, why are we not investing more on single family? Like, I see that area of the market, you know, you said around that million dollar one point one in the Okanagan. If no one's penciling these to build a single family home, what's gonna happen in five years? When everyone wants a single family home, they're just gonna become more, you know, expensive to turn 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 with similar style of financing programs that we're doing with multifamily?

Jeff Houghton: Yeah. I don't know if we can speak much to that. You know, a lot of these homeowners, they've been in the house thirty, forty, fifty years. They have an insane amount of equity in the property in the house. So, typically, I'm guessing in this homeowners in since that was what happened, just had in the same amount of equity.
Easy to go to your bank and say, listen. Yep. This is what I wanna do. You get a construction mortgage, you know, you probably finance maybe a line of credit for the subdivision process, and then you can get a construction loan for the rest. But, yeah, in terms of other avenues, I don't think the government circle into that yet.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. Yeah. And I I mean, we talked to the city previously, and we're gonna have Fred Smith back on shortly. But, like, they've commented, like, DCCs are just, like, non negotiable, but that was kind of the pitch. I was like, well, why don't you do DCCs at the end?
You know, like, why are we forcing homeowners and developers to pay for these costs upfront 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, you know, there's built in equity. Right? Like, you know, it's a secured asset.

Jeff Houghton: It's good.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. So for big white, like, just selfishly. I'm curious, how's building going up there? Like, is it still active in terms of like, people want properties at Big White? Is it growing?
Why'd you guys move to Big White, I guess, or expand Big White?

Jeff Houghton: Our best friends were thinking about buying up there, and then we were thinking about buying stuff kind of how it started. And we're just looking at potentially buying an older unit and, you know, maybe I would do a quick renovation and we'd split it. The idea being that, like, I think it's great to be at a big white twice a month, but I don't wanna be up there every single weekend and neither did they. So it's like, hey, we can put all the costs. We trust each other to take care of this unit equally.
So we started looking couldn't quite find anything that we wanted. And then we kinda started to consider to build, and then this chunk of land came up. So that's kinda how we got invested, and we kinda just popped on it right away. So Sundance is, like, one of the best locations. Ski and ski out at big light.
Walking distance to the village, it's all pretty flat. So it's a pretty amazing opportunity, and then he's a business partner in that development company. Of the nine units we built. We ended up keeping one and spent a ton of time up there this last year, which was amazing. So so for personally, it was a great investment.
It was really fun for the family, taught the girls how to ski. It was a haute. But in terms of building that's regional district of kooky boundary, which is super odd. Right? You're dealing with this office.
And I think it's in Grand Forks, like, three and a half hours away

Matt Glen: Yeah.

Jeff Houghton: As opposed to, you know, City of Kelowna. I'm not sure. I think City of Kelowna wants it to be in their jurisdiction, but that's another conversation. But big white themselves are extremely pro development they, you know, when I bought the land, they literally reached out to me. We've never had this time before and say, hey, what can we do to make it easy and enjoyable for you to build up here?
So if you need a place to park your equipment, if you need some extra dirt, like, whatever you need, just let us know. Wow. And, you know, admittedly, they say, listen, like, we just we want more building up there. That puts more people in our chairlifts at the end of the day. Right?
So kinda makes sense. So they'll do whatever they can, but on the flip side of that is it it's extremely hard to build up there because no matter why you're like a minimum two year build. Right? You have a short season for construction. Yep.
It's all up there right now. There's, you know, I don't know how many there's seven or eight feet of snow. So kind of by the time it melts or it's manageable, you've got to, like, dig your footage, get your foundation, get everything prep, get it framed, kind of get it to lock up, and then it's snowing, like, crazy again. 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, five years, right, to build. So just tough place to build. It's a very expensive place to build for multiple reasons because a lot of the trades don't wanna go up there. So they charge you a lot of travel or they'll just charge you, you know, just ten or twenty percent more to go up to big white, obviously expensive to get materials up there as well. 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'm not a carpenter by trade, but I come from an accounting background. But I'm putting the roof system on and, like, I've never seen so many trusses space, like, so close together. And I'm like, hey, what's going on here? And the framers were like, holy cow, this is a lot, and just like the amount of engineering that went into the system. So I phoned the engineers and said, what's going on?
And he's like, man, we had to rate the roof of your unit for one million pounds of snow. One million times. Yeah. So I'm like, whoa. Why?
And he said, well, we have to assume that it potentially have, like, nine feet of snow on the entire roof, but also where it's been, like, you know, rained on and pushed down and unpacted. So, like, the amount of, like, weight and snow load, it's insane. So, like, everything you do up there is just, like, insanely expensive. So

Matt Glen: That's funny. So I'll just same kind of note. I sold a unit up there couple months ago. And then Spectre went to go in the attic. The attic opening was, like, nine inches because all the trusses were so close to Okay.
There's get up there that he looked up there. And he said the same thing. He's, like, man, there is, like, so many trusses up your space really close together. So if that makes sense.

Taylor Atkinson: Man, missed opportunity. I remember when I was a kid shoveling driveways for, like, two bucks. Just go up to big white. Like, I imagine you guys are just shoveling snow for six months of the year just to, like, get to your material.

Matt Glen: A two bucks are gonna shovel a nine feet of snow off of a million pounds.

Taylor Atkinson: Well, obviously, you're gonna charge more now, man. Like, four fifty.

Jeff Houghton: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, you gotta budget a lot for the snow removal because the fourplex, like, we kind of abandoned it for a bit because there's so much snow. We got it.
We have to start mathematically. We wanna try to get it done for this snow season. Right? So it's at, like, framing lock up ish stage. So we went to hop back on it, and I think I had two machines up there for two weeks just claiming snow.

Taylor Atkinson: Oh, man.

Jeff Houghton: You're just, like, taking money and just, like, flushing it off.

Matt Glen: It's funny because it's not like you just take the snow and put it to the side of the driveway. No. You don't take it somewhere. Right?

Jeff Houghton: So Yeah. Yeah. You yeah. You pile as high as you can on your own property, and then eventually, you just have to track it away. Right?
So I see.

Taylor Atkinson: It's kinda wild, though, like, comparables up there, you know, you're buying, I guess, most of them are, like, four plexes or duplexes or something, but, like, the cost doesn't seem outrageous when you consider the surplus charge that builders would have to incur to go up there. Right? Is it because the land cost would be slightly cheaper? Or like

Jeff Houghton: The land cost is slightly cheaper. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, like, I don't know how familiar people are. But, like, if you look at the homes right above us on feather top way, like, there's a bunch of nice single family homes being built in there, that's a nice subdivision, but it is pretty expensive.
Like, you're looking at two point one to four point five million for, like, a thirty eight hundred square foot house. And the lands, you know, the land is at most, like, eight hundred grand for a lot. The prices are expensive. If you're looking at some of the older stuff, yeah, like, there's some pretty good deals, especially if you're in some sort of a multifamily or shared costs. Right?

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. Are you a CPA? Like, is that what you went to school for or business?

Jeff Houghton: Yeah. I did a four year commerce degree at UBC Van, and then I did major in accounting and then did some finance and real estate. But I had job offers of, like, the big four firms, and I accepted with KPMG. But in the background, I'd already started this company in my second year. I was kind of managing it from Vancouver.
It wasn't doing a heck of a lot. But I just had this moment, I, like, it was a first week at KPMG us back in Kelowna. So I was going to get my CPA. When I just had this moment, I'm like, man, if I don't give this construction company a goal right now, like, by the time I spent three or four more years getting my CPA, I'm never gonna do it. So I was like, hey.
I'm just gonna give it one year. I'm gonna try this construction thing. I'd never even been on an construction jobs that I had no business starting a construction company, but so I just gave it one year and I just gonna see how it goes. That's kinda how that got going.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. I didn't know that. So I feel like most construction companies start the other way around. Right. Those are, like, they're a builder, and then they kinda get into it.
And they're usually, like, in over their head just in the financial side of things. But you're probably better off to start where you came from. Right? Like,

Jeff Houghton: could go either way. I think yeah. You're right. So most builders, you guys think by and large, they come from a construction background, even start as a labor, then a carpenter, then kind of a site supervisor. Like, all carpenters are trying to get off the tools at a certain point.
Right? Yeah. So I think a lot of those guys become builders, and a lot of them are incredible builders because they've been in construction their entire life. They just know everything about every aspect to build. But when it comes to the business side of things, they're completely just learning on the fly.
Right? Like, in terms of the taxes, the invoices, and all that sort of thing. So with my accounting background, I did spend, like, four years on the tools, you know, meeting the trades, being immersed in it, quickly kinda move out the tools And then I have, like, a one main guy, one main construction manager, and the guy is, like, incredible with 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 accounting background, I think, has been a huge competitive advantage and kind of differentiator, especially if you're trying to do higher end homes or even these multifamily projects sometimes will bring in investors. Well, when you have a set of, like, financials and budgets and all sorts of paperwork that's extremely well organized and you could talk about the tax implications etcetera.
It's gonna give you an advantage over the competition.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. Well, I mean, specifically in today's market, right, where there's so many unknowns and you kinda need to have that security on it. In terms of building right now, like, what are people's biggest mistakes? What are trends? I guess, trends are basically just stagnant.
No one's doing anything right now.

Matt Glen: But But it would go to European.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah.

Matt Glen: Because yeah. True. And Asian influence for sure.

Jeff Houghton: Yeah. And Asian influence. Yeah. And the biggest mistakes people make, that's, I think, a pretty simple answer. I guess, in terms of we're talking about, like, custom home, it's just not having, like, an open and honest communication upfront with your builder.
And that could be on the client or that could be on the builder. So, you know, if the builder's not being honest about how much it's gonna actually cost, that's gonna lead to big problems once the product's underway or how long the product's gonna take. So that's also not a good start. And then for the client, if the client's not being open and honest with how much they realistically and comfortably wanna spend, It's not good. And then, also, if they're not being honest with how long they think their product is gonna take, or, you know, certain features that I call them, like, must have features for the client.
If they're not, you know, telling the contractor that it's just gonna be kind of a rocky road. Right from the start. And then also just probably not choosing the right builder. Interestingly, like, Kelowna, when we go to these award shows, there are so many good builders in Kelowna, like, the quality of these award show of the photos and of the projects that you see people building. It's just like it's a shot dropping.
So tons of exceptional builders and developers in Kelowna, so lots of good options. But you wanna make sure when you're choosing your builder, like, make sure that you trust them. Obviously, it's gonna be a massive investment. Make sure you have a lot of trust in that person, especially if it's like a cost plus job. Right?
Because you have the trust that all these invoices are for their house, and then, you know, there's a markup added to that. And then you have to like them too. Right? Like, you're gonna spend seven, eight months to three or four years with this person. So make sure that you like them and you get along with them.
And then I always recommend, like, ask a ton of questions, like and that builder should have an answer to every single question. You know, no questions asked. They should not hesitate. And, you know, make sure that you talk to the clients that they built for, or, you know, you visit their job sites that they have on the goal. Like, are the job sites well organized?
Are they clean? Do they have job sites on the goal? So all things like that. So just have open and honest communication. Otherwise, can get derailed pretty quickly.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. I I feel like a huge one there, which I don't know if people do or not, but it's like, hey, can I come walk through a home you're building right now? Like, you know, why would you not do that? Do you get most clients looking to do that?

Jeff Houghton: Hundred percent. Yep. Like, I actually take a lot of clients to my personal home just 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 almost equally important, and we'll take them through projects that are underway or projects that are similar to their own Right? Or if we're talking about, hey. You should do this cool feature.
Lots of people are doing this. Well, I think you're gonna love this. We can take them through one of the projects and have them walk through it and see it in person. So just trying to add value and make sure the person gets the best result at the end of the day.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. Do you get a lot of, like, self enjoyment for, like, walking through, like, hand in the keys over? Like, is that kind of the the reason why you like to build? Is seeing, like, a client come in and be, like, oh, man, this is my dream home.

Jeff Houghton: Man, that's a fascinating question. So I project managed for probably eight or nine years. And now, like, I alluded to earlier, like, I'm pretty much primarily in the office. I have project managers now. So I'm not on-site a ton.
I miss that. Like, I miss being able to hand the keys to the clients. I guess I could. I could overrule my product manager to help me.

Matt Glen: Give me those.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. I'm having a bad day. I wanna feel better.

Jeff Houghton: Yeah. Absolutely. But, no. So, yeah, the product managers hand over the keys and they get the glory. Right?

Taylor Atkinson: It's like real estate agents and mortgage brokers.

Jeff Houghton: I'm 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.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. I love that answer. Okay. Well, we gotta start getting into our wrap up part here. So I'll just dive into it.
I feel like Matt and I have asked this ten different ways, so just give us the answer. If you could buy property in the next twelve months in the Okanagan, what would it be?

Jeff Houghton: So one of my life goals actually growing up was to, at one point, live on the water. You know, it's open on the lake. So I was like, you know what? If you can do that, you know, like, you've made it. Right?
Like, you're gonna live this open on a lifestyle, you're gonna be walking off your dog, kind of the boat, and doing all the great things. Yeah. But in twenty nineteen, we bought a lot in Lakeview Heights, like a view lot in Lakeview Heights in a new little subdivision that actually the bylance developed and just completely 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 close by. We've got, you know, you're literally driving through vineyards to get to your house. Yep.
And nesters, we've got a little bakery there, beautiful view, and this is a great spot to raise your family. We're on a cold stack. So for me, my dream, I've put the other dream. It's no longer a dream. And We wanna buy, like, a legacy property like the Heights.
Private, big, and I wanna tear something down. And then I wanna build a nice house for us and actually a carriage house. And I've already kinda talked my in laws into moving to Paris. Awesome. I have the floor plans.
And I have the 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

Taylor Atkinson: I love that.

Jeff Houghton: It's only meant the time.

Matt Glen: Matt, you are way farther ahead to what you're dreaming than most of our other guests would be asked that question.

Jeff Houghton: Yeah, it's, like, financially invested in. It's gonna happen.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. One Lakeview. That's a great area.

Matt Glen: It is a nice area. That's a

Jeff Houghton: It's the kitsolano of Keloma. And, like, we can literally rip downtown in six minutes, but then at the same time, we have this, like, private large piece of property. Like, it's just Yep. Unbeatable.

Matt Glen: Yeah. Great. It's awesome. Alright. If you could give your twenty year old self any advice.
What are you saying?

Jeff Houghton: Embrace failure.

Taylor Atkinson: Nice. Nice.

Jeff Houghton: I think generally even just speak for myself, you know, no one likes being bad at things and no one likes failing at things or looking silly in front of their people. And I think because of that, we avoid, you know, pursuing our dreams. We avoid trying new things. And I think it just holds us back in so many ways and so many aspects of life. If you can embrace failure and know that it's actually necessary to be success Well, you have to fail a lot of times.
I literally all all of 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 in place.
So I'll make them mistake again. But you're failing all the time, but that's just part of success. Right? I just quickly wanna say, yeah, I listened to a podcast a year ago. We all have young kids, so this is important.
The lady was saying how, instead of asking her kids when they got home from school, you know, what was 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 thought that was so cool because she was, like, normalizing failure. Right?
Saying that, like, hey, this is You're stigmatizing. This is a good to fail. And she said after a few months, the kids would get home and be like, oh, you wouldn't believe how badly I screwed up every day. And she said it like No.

Matt Glen: You're the the call.

Jeff Houghton: Yeah. This is the thing. Like, all the kids are trying to outdo each other's failures. And I just think that's incredible. Something I wanna pass down to my kids, and that's interesting to think.
If you wanna be successful, you gotta realize that you are going to fail like, a lot. It's unavoidable. Yeah.

Taylor Atkinson: I don't know if I listened 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?

Jeff Houghton: We get involved with the Kona Santos. So we'll do, like, these Christmas Pampers, like, these custom Christmas Pampers every winter for families that are in need. It's actually an incredibly, like, emotional experience. They introduce you to couple families, and there's kind of a list of items that they can afford to have. Get those items together and you can deliver them to the family and it's pretty powerful.
It would be like thanksgiving food drives and such and get food and donate some groceries and whatnot. And then actually, I write him on my construction manager. He's got three boys in hockey. So Nice. I swear.
We must sponsor, like, every hockey team and every sweater and everything has grown the entire Okanagan. I wrote the young gentleman's name down just like two weeks ago, we have sponsored Maverick McCarthy. He's like a twelve year old. Apparently, is it absolute stead? Oh, yeah.
He's trying to make the NHL. Apparently, he's like the best defenseman in Western Canada. I don't know. You know, trying to make NHL. It's expensive probably to do so.
So we just put some money and and hopefully, he makes it. Sweet. Remember that name? Yeah.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. Well, maybe we should have him on the podcast before he Yeah. Makes it big, you know.

Jeff Houghton: Yeah. Again, I'm on the pod. Right?

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. Maybe we should have him on our team. Matt's trying to spice up a hockey league for us to get into a

Jeff Houghton: Typically twelve. Yeah.

Taylor Atkinson: Hey, man. He's gotta escape better than us. Yeah. He's

Matt Glen: gonna definitely be way better than us, but

Jeff Houghton: He's probably huge. Yeah. Who knows?

Taylor Atkinson: He's on the creative team for sure.

Jeff Houghton: Well, absolutely. You know, he's on the pro team guy for sure.

Matt Glen: Yep. That's awesome. Alright. How can Taylor or I or listener help you? What can we do for you?

Jeff Houghton: If you guys wanna check out our websites, we're h and h holmes dot c a, all spelled out. So it's a cool spot to check out our projects that we've done before and see some of our awards. Contact numbers on there and our emails on there. We're on Facebook and Instagram under h n h Homes and Oconon and Phil as well for both those companies. So if anyone wants to reach out, stop by the office or give us a call, honestly, in a ten or fifteen minute conversation, we can answer a lot of people's questions and let them know if what they're thinking about is feasible.
You know, how much is gonna cost to build and how long it's gonna take?

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. Or we just go with a a weighted walk with you. You know? I'll jump on your back and we'll just do ops around the mission and

Jeff Houghton: thrown the rock sack. Yeah.

Taylor Atkinson: Yeah. Alright, man. Well, thank you for coming on us. It's been a long time coming. And, yeah, I appreciate you.
So yeah.

Jeff Houghton: Yeah. Thanks, guys. Yeah. If you see me walking around Laura Mission there, hunch door with a backpack, give me a honk for a wave. Right.

Matt Glen: And we'll I'll avoid any puddles if it's raining.

Jeff Houghton: Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Glen: I got you there. Alright.

Taylor Atkinson: Thanks. Yeah. We'll see you around now. Appreciate it.

Jeff Houghton: Cheers, guys. Appreciate it.