Thoughts on a Real Estate Developer's Most Valuable Tool {Long Term Success}

Imagine a man whose fridge has broken. This man, a meticulous type-A who panics at the slightest lack of uniformity, must make sure his cautiously-catalogued fridge items do not spoil. He’s at the end of his wits, calling repairmen across town in desperation to get someone there immediately, so as not to lose his precious eggs. He finally hears a quote he likes, and he hires the crew.

They show up an hour later, equipment in tow. They remove the fridge doors and yank off some paneling, which panics the meticulous man. Forgetting to check himself, he curtly tells the repairmen to be more careful, to which he receives a dirty look. Finally, they discover what’s stopping the fridge’s cooling pump, and fix the faltering equipment. As the crew puts the paneling and doors back together, the meticulous man goes to inspects the work before experiencing a twinge of guilt. Perhaps he had been a bit harsh before. He decides to give them the benefit of the doubt, pays them the service fee, and see them out.

It may come as no surprise to the reader that the meticulous man woke up late that night to a deafening crash, reverberating through the house. The fridge door fell off.

The first thing that ran through the meticulous man’s mind as he observed the broken door was a particular lesson his father taught him: “Inspect What You Expect.”

Every real estate development manual out there should write this rule on the first page. It should be stapled to the framing wall of every new build. Because when it comes to real estate development, whether it be commercial or residential, inspecting what one expects can make the difference between a satisfying construction process and completely blowing the budget. Whether you’re looking to invest in real estate for the first time or you’ve been in development for three decades, if you can hone one skillset, let it be your observation skills. Inspect what you expect.

Money piles up. Large budgets are complicated, and only grow increasingly so over time. Budgets are blown all the time, and a large percentage of projects going overbudget do so because the job wasn’t done right the first time. It’s inevitable that something, at some point, goes wrong, and when it does, the budget takes the hit. But it doesn’t have to—you just have to inspect it well enough the first time.

Now, this goes without saying, but if you’re to inspect anything to any degree at all, you have to know what you expect. That’s where the Denver Developer Blog & Denver Development Group comes in. As investors ourselves with decades of industry experience, we’ve developed a keen eye for small details found in every step of a real estate development project. From instructing engineers on blueprint details to working on-site with professional contractors, every step of the process requires attention—and inspection. Denver Development Group has found that, if project managers or general contractors or real estate investors just take the time to inspect the work—no matter how professional or reassuring or hostile the contractor may seem—it pays off by saving future headaches and stresses.

Take the time, double and triple-check, and your budget will thank you for it. Or hire a great developer.

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Denver Developer Blog was established to help investors and other individuals interested in real estate development with steps in the process. With this resource, hopefully when you show up on your work site you’ll know just what to expect so you can inspect to the best degree. If you’d like to invest but don’t want to have to deal with all the intensive detail, well, that’s what we’re here for!

What Do You Do When the Worksite Gets Real? (An Anecdote)

In real estate development, you have got to be prepared for absolutely anything that comes your way. Flexibility and adaptability are vital skills in this industry; when everything goes wrong, being able to adjust can mean the difference between sinking or swimming. 

This simple fact is no better demonstrated than Wednesday, February 20th, 2019. It was on this day that the construction schedule for 1316-18 Perry faltered. 

A construction schedule is incredibly important. There are very specific steps a developer has to take, in sequence, or else it can all quickly get complicated and expensive. Delays in construction happen all the time, and often the schedule is built with this in mind. Sometimes, however, one too many delays leads to a small “crash,” where everything seems to happen all at once instead of nice and spread out like the schedule assumes. This happened on February 20th, and there wasn’t much that anyone could really do about it. 

It’s winter here in Colorado, and if you’ve lived in Colorado for any amount of time, you’ll understand that wintertime in the Purple State can be finicky and unreliable. In some parts of the country, people can sort of scope out their winters and have an established idea of what  weather may be like. Not so in Colorado, even in Denver, its metropolitan capital. It seems as if every day is entirely up in the air—so many seem to start bright and sunny and end windy and snowy. Heavy snowfall will occur out of nowhere, throw off everyone’s plans, then disappear the next day as people prepare for it to last longer. Suffice it to say, the unreliability of Denver weather did not help the construction schedule of 1316 Perry.

Thankfully, Keith Gallegos and Alfonso Lopez had prepared for delays, and the schedule was buoyant with the shifts and changes. But then, it snowed one too many times. Keith and Alfonso didn’t realize things were going to get crazy until that Wednesday morning, as they were in a meeting to discuss production over the next couple of months. Suddenly, Alfonso broke away to take a phone call from the HVAC guys. After hanging up, he quickly turned to Keith and told him that, apparently, the plumber had stopped by and dropped all his supplies off to start a couple days early (since he was scheduled to start by the end of the week). This wouldn’t have been a big deal if Alfonso hadn’t already dealt with a problem earlier between the backfill contractors and the framers. The backfill crew had thrown all the framer’s equipment into the house, and the framers showed up right when the HVAC guys were dropping off all their equipment. The framers at this point were already behind schedule thanks to the weather, and the reshuffling of their own supplies wasn’t helping. Plus, the framers now had to work around the HVAC crew and their equipment as well as the plumbing crew and their equipment. Things were getting very cramped, and the separate groups all fought for space in order to get their work done.  Then, Alfonso got  another call—this time from the window delivery company.  About 50 windows for 1316-18 Perry (the address for these specific duplex builds) were being delivered. And there was nowhere to put them. 

Windows are already a valuable investment, and it doesn’t help that they’re also incredibly fragile. If not timed properly, a window delivery can serve to get in the way big time, since craftsmen have to either work around them or move them constantly to get their job done. And that’s if windows were the only problem facing Alfonso and Keith now. They jumped in the car and immediately drove to the site, and what they found was just about what they expected—near chaos. A large truck had pulled up to the back of the building, and two men were unloading large windows into the house. The seven plumbing guys had their equipment strewn all about while they worked, and the windows were beginning to get in their way. They were also directly in the way of the three-man HVAC crew and their supplies, who were already in the way of the two framers whose supplies had been shuffled around. Just then, the concrete cutting company showed up to take care of coring in the foundation. 

The schedule had glitched out.

Thankfully, Keith and Alfonso are professionals. They rolled up their sleeves and immediately got to work, giving instructions to the HVAC crew and window guys while reassuring the framers. Alfonso helped move windows to a location that was out of the way while Keith went  over inventory with the window company. After, Alfonso worked with the plumbers while Keith walked through the basement with the concrete coring company. All the while, the two didn’t lose their cool and made sure the construction process went according to plan. After a couple hours of coordinating and getting their hands dirty, they had fixed the glitch, and the project began humming away on schedule again. They had averted a potential disaster, and were able to smooth over tensions and protect their materials they had paid so much for. The job was back on track.

Moments like these happen constantly in the development business; it’s these moments that make or break a build’s profitability. Unforeseen circumstances can cause big hits on the budget. By being in constant communication, problem solving, and knowing the process in and out, Keith and Alfonso were able to steer the project on track and keep themselves from taking a big financial hit. All it takes is hard work, flexibility, and a bit of ingenuity.