Can’t find your dream home? Ever consider remodeling an underwhelming house in a fabulous location? Jeff Santerre, Principal & Founder of Prestige Residential Construction in Seattle, WA, talks remodeling and home construction, with hosts and Realtors Tracy and Kathy Nelson.
Complete transcription (June 5, 2015):
Eye4Homes TV presents Buying Your Dream Home Today. With Kathy Nelson, and Tracy Nelson. And now, Kathy and Tracy.
eye4homes :: Hello. Happy Friday, and welcome to the show. I’m Kathy. And I’m Tracy, and we are a husband and wife real estate broker team with John L. Scott in Redmond, Washington. And you’re watching Buying Your Dream Home Today. A weekly webcast that happens every Friday at noon. These shows are focused on getting you the information that you need in order to help you buy your dream home with confidence. And today’s topic is – Remodeling. And it’s pretty hard to find that dream home sometimes out there. Yeah, what if it doesn’t exist. What would it take for you to buy a… well let’s say less than your dream home, and then maybe, it’s still in a great location, but then make it into your dream home. To help us with that today we have with us Jeff Santerre. He’s a Principal and Founder of Prestige Residential Construction in Seattle, Washington. Hello Jeff, and welcome to the show.
Jeff :: Hello Kathy. Hey Tracy. How are you doin’?
eye4homes :: Doing so good. It is gonna be like 80 this weekend and gorgious.
Jeff :: Sweet, that’s great. Love it here.
eye4homes :: Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself.
Jeff :: Well I’m practically a Seattle native. I’ve been here since 1968, and just, you know, I really love the Pacific Northwest. I love the outdoors and the environment we live in. I didn’t get started on construction until I was around my late 20s, because previously I was a professional musician, and when the disco era put all the great R&B bands out of business that’s when I got into construction, and shortly thereafter started Prestige Residential Construction back in 1981.
eye4homes :: Ahh, okay, disco? When it went away.
Jeff :: You two are too young. I’ve been in the business about 35 years now, and on a personal note I’m a, as I mentioned, I’m a former professional musician. I’m a wine lover and foodie, and an avid alpine skier, and a cyclist. I was just down in Laguna, California, and my buddy down there took me on a 49 mile cycle ride day before yesterday, so that’s a lot of fun. But that’s a little bit about me. I’m married. I’ve got two great grown kids, and two outstanding grandchildren that are under two years old.
eye4homes :: That’s nice. It’s funny how we get these great guests on because for one thing I’m a foodie, I like wine, we actually were… I was a manager of a rock band in Seattle many years ago. So we have that in common too. And we’re grandparents and we’re parents of two kids.
Jeff :: You two are grandparents? That’s remarkable.
eye4homes :: Hey, thanks. I like that. Well let’s get into this here. First of all, the construction market in general, does it kind of keep track with the housing market in general? Does, you know, it’s really hot in housing, is it hot in construction too?
Jeff :: I’d have to say generally they track. You know they vary quite a bit. A lot of times if new housing isn’t available people are more likely to stay in their house and remodel. Or if they are particularly into their particular neighborhood, or friends nearby, family nearby, that kind of thing. Yeah it kind of parallels, Tracy, but it also has a bit of a mind of its own, and I think it’s all a lot more related to what’s going on in real estate sales. We know it’s hot for you too now and it’s hot for us. The inventory is down. People are almost afraid to sell their house and they say, okay, we’re going to stay and remodel because we don’t know where we would go.
eye4homes :: Is it the staying and remodeling or is there also a lot of business related to getting ready to sell, and then maybe those people who are buying a home afterward and aren’t quite happy with it?
Jeff :: Yeah well, it’s not so much getting ready to sell. Our service team manages some up that kind of work. We have a lot of realtor colleagues that call on us to help maybe repair some deficiencies in a house before it goes on the marketplace, Tracy, but at the same time we also know that statistically people work on their house most in this first few years they have it, as opposed to later in the life of their relationship with the home.
eye4homes :: Do they ever call you before they buy a house and say, hey, are the bones good for this home to be remodeled? Because some of these are older homes that they want to make prettier and live there for a long time with their families. Does anybody ever call before they buy it?
Jeff :: You know the smart ones do, Tracy, that’s an awesome question. A lot of people can look at a house and say yeah we could put in a new kitchen, we could open up that wall, and remodel the basement, or improve the master suite, and then they get the house and find out the reality of what that really costs. So I think it’s a smart consumer that would develop a relationship with a contractor early in the stage of house hunting, or if they already had that relationship, take their contractor when their getting happy house hunting and help them distill down the kind of house that makes the most sense. I just did this for a couple that moved from the Mount Baker neighborhood of Seattle to a different area of town and it was remarkable the houses that I talked them out of.
eye4homes :: That you talked them out of?
Jeff :: Yes. Just due to the number liabilities and they thought, oh, we can fix this house for 50000 or 100000. And when it boiled down it was really going to take more than that to fix the property. So anyway, they found the right house I think five or six houses later, so you know…
eye4homes :: Who is that perfect client of yours? What would they look like to you?
Jeff :: Well generally our clients are fairly discerning. Their not necessarily particular or fussy, but they care about quality things in their life. And not necessarily even fancy things, but just good quality, sustainable, construction work, and they want that in their house. I think one that values our balance of craft and process management is an ideal client for us. I mean a lot of people just want to get started on construction and they don’t really have a plan, and planning is super important. You know in real estate it’s location location
location.
eye4homes :: Yes it is. Location. Yes.
Jeff :: In construction it’s planning and planning, and having a good plan in place because an organized construction company like ours can run over design if it’s not figured out in advance. So a savvy client would probably have an architect and have a good plan in place, or call us and we can refer them to appropriate design professional, interior design architect or engineer, whatever they needed. But really it’s somebody that’s willing to invest in their lifestyle via the home and have a successful project. Smooth project.
eye4homes :: And it’s funny you said that. Their actually investing in their lifestyle because you’re going to spend time with them, creating this lifestyle in that gorgeous house that their… well maybe not gorgeous at the beginning, but by the end. So we’re going to show some pictures of some of the houses you have on your website. By the way, everybody should check out this website too, of the remodels they have done. They are beautiful. So first off, there’s just this easy… I mean, there’s remodeling you can do all parts of your house. This one is the deck. A roof deck. Madison Park roof deck. I mean look at this. We’re gonna go through it really fast. They have a gorgeous view. Could you imagine having a picnic or a barbecue on this on a Friday night with your wine? Yes. And then one of the ones we were talking about earlier before the show, this Snoqualmie River Valley barn. Now we live in the Snoqualmie Valley, and the photos are gorgeous, but this barn is just down the street from us. Can you tell us a little bit about this one?
Jeff :: Yeah this is the Oxbow farm. An organic produce processing barn. And the farm uses it for their agriculture activities there, and, you know, of course it has a little office, but it’s basically for for farm equipment and processing the produce. And it’s between Carnation and Duvall, right along the river and it’s… we built it several years ago when it was early sustainable construction, before green became the big thing. And it’s a flood resistant building made out of all sustainable materials. Reclaimed wood. Responsibly harvested wood. It’s made of concrete and concrete block in metal, and things that can be reused and recycled. But this barn probably has, you know, a hundred-plus year life expectancy. And it’s flooded a couple or three times…
eye4homes :: Has it really?
Jeff :: …and it did very well.
eye4homes :: You know that when you’re talking about the repurposed wood, and the sustainability, and the farms, and I mean those are such wonderful things to talk about too. I mean, you must love what you do.
Jeff :: Yeah I do. I do love what I do. I have a real passion for it. I got into that, Kathy, when I just liked the architecture in the houses in, you know, the greater Seattle area. And I got into construction via my passion for the home.
eye4homes :: And we’re looking at this kitchen because, like you mentioned, foodie, I am a foodie, and the first thing I always look at when I a show homes is, or just look at them, is the kitchen. And most people live in this area, I mean, and you could tell that most people have put most to their money into the kitchen. Now what do you think of that? Is that like the most popular renovation of a home?
Jeff :: It certainly is among the top ones, Kathy. You know, as we know the kitchen in today’s lifestyle is really the heart of the home. You know if your a cook and a foodie and a wine lover you know when you have folks over where does everybody want to hang out? They want to hangout where you are…
eye4homes :: Yes.
Jeff :: …in the kitchen doing prep, you know, they’re going to want to hang out, you know, have a glass of wine with you, chat while you’re doing food prep, so it’s really the hub of the home. And for families that connected space with the kitchen, you know, casual dining, great room, a lot of the older homes, even, you know, from the early part of the 1900s, but even up well into the 90s, they didn’t have have that really really open family-oriented floor plan, so that’s a really popular alteration. We’re doing a project gearing up to do one over in the west slope of Queen Ann, and the project is called Kitchen Plus because the kitchen reaches out to the family room and then down the hall to the powder/bath, and connects with the entry. And we’re doing new flooring. So it’s really the hub of it is the kitchen, but it’s also the area that surrounds the kitchen that is really common to remodel and update. Make it a little more family and friends friendly.
eye4homes :: Can you ever go too far with that? Is that, is the sky the limit?
Jeff :: For me or for the client? The kitchen is the most expensive room in the house, Tracy, so that’s an excellent question. You know they’ve got to manage their expectation and manage their, ah, get with a good team of professionals. Build that team with your architect, owner and design professional, and get a budget in mind before you go too crazy. Because it’s no fun to over design a project and find out you can’t build it, yet you know you’ve invested in the design. So I like to play this team work thing where we do a little design, do a little price checking, get back into design development, do some final pricing, and then, you know, it keeps the bus on the road so to speak as far as expectations, and minimizes surprises as the project evolves.
eye4homes :: Okay, so the budget friendly stuff is really cool until you see, and here it comes, there’s… we’re showing the arch house, and my favorite room that I told you earlier that I saw right next… I think it’s the next photo, hold on… might have to help it along. No. Okay, there it is. The wine cellar. Oh my gosh.
Jeff :: Which room is this?
eye4homes :: The wine cellar.
Jeff :: Oh the wine seller. Oh it is gorgeous.
eye4homes :: Did you like… you know, did you construct that wine cellar?
Jeff :: That was part of an aggressive whole house remodel. This was a 1927 brick urban tudor house up on the top of Magnolia looking out over Puget Sound, and we did an aggressive renovation on that house, and actually had it off its foundation, up in the air on crib shoring…
eye4homes :: Bring the photo back up of the house.
Jeff :: It’s the brick one, with the blue stone and the slate roof, right?
eye4homes :: Oh my god. You had that in the air?
Jeff :: Cribs, Tracy, during the Nisqually Earthquake, it wasn’t even on the foundation. We had it chained down and strapped down and it still moved around quite a bit. We did a whole house renovation. We put 3,000 square feet of new basement under that 3,000 square foot house.
eye4homes :: That’s impressive. We just saw a house that needed some foundation work, and wow!
Jeff :: That’s a real jewel box. It’s a super quiet house. Hydronic heated. It’s very durable with the brick and the blue stone and the slate, but all this talk is making me thirsty, Tracy. I want to get down to that wine seller.
eye4homes :: I know. You know that’s why I love about Seattle too. It has so much charm and character, and it sounds like you’re bringing the best of it out, and showcasing it in these homes.
Jeff :: Well that’s really true, but that doesn’t eliminate say a great area back out more towards Oxbow. Redmond. There’s a lot of houses that are maybe 20-25 years old in great locations. Maybe a great view of Lake Sammamish, and maybe the interiors just aren’t working, or somebody’s done some less than thoughtful decorating and altering of the house.
eye4homes :: That’s a nice way to put it.
Jeff :: Okay. I try to be somewhat diplomatic when I can. Anyway… so those houses have plenty of opportunity too, to be way better. We’re making a proposal to a professional couple out in Lake Sammamish right now, to do a gut renovation of a house that was only built about twenty two years ago, 24 years ago maybe, and they got a good buy, even in this hot market on the property. And they want to do, you know, probably a two-phase aggressive remodeled. I mean the view is there. Killer location. Super private. Backs up into the forest, but the house is sort of underwhelming.
eye4homes :: So how do you guide your clients and what helps them the most?
Jeff :: Well I think what really helps them is our information management system and communication. A lot contractors do good craft, you know, get reasonably organized and build good projects, but our consumers are so sophisticated now. We think they need excellent communication. They need electronic communication. They need electronic documents. They want to have us help them manage their decisions in their budget and schedule and so, you know, we’re a very tech oriented company for a construction company and we use a lot of technology to communicate with our sophisticated, especially our techie clients. They just expect it. We have construction meetings via Skype, for example, like…
eye4homes :: Like we’re doing today.
Jeff :: Yeah. Well years ago we just didn’t do that. We had to have a real live facetime meeting, you know.
eye4homes :: It’s nice. It’s nice when we can do things like that. Why don’t you tell us where everybody can find you too.
Jeff :: Yes. Everybody can find us easily on the web. It’s at PrestigeCrafted.com, and we’ve got our… you can click different links and learn about our custom home construction, which is mostly replacement houses, you know, in city – Bellevue, Mercer Island, Seattle, Redmond. Tear-downs where we take out an underwhelming house on a fabulous piece of property. And then we have done remodeling, as we talked about before, since 1981. Remodels of all sizes and shapes. And then the service team has been a real hit our customers. We have a a dedicated service team that manages small jobs and maintenance and repair, and our clients really appreciate it that they don’t have to have a really big aggressive project or even any kind of serious remodel to have a relationship with our organization.
eye4homes :: And you have all that on your website. I want everybody to go on there and check out for one thing the portfolio is amazing. And then you have a repair and care page too, which is helpful too.
Jeff :: Sure. It’s great in that we’re getting a lot of nice traffic off the website and that we’ve got strong reviews on Yelp so a lot of people find us that way and then I sent to the website. But another big part of our business is our relationship with our realtor colleagues, and, you know, because often you two are the first ones in when they’re selling and buying, and, you know, if we can have a great relationship with our real estate professionals and be comfortable, you know, referring each other that’s really helpful for our businesses, and really helpful for our clients too because they don’t have to go out and start from scratch about who am I going to call. Especially those folks that are brand new to our community. Say they’re from the Northeast, or moving up here from California, or quite often these days international…
eye4homes :: Yes.
Jeff :: …newcomers to the Seattle scene, you know, from China or Eastern Europe, or you know South America or where have you. So it’s a lot of fun for me to meet people and, you know, figure out how to help them get where they want to be in their house.
eye4homes :: Yeah, and create that lifestyle for them right here. That’s nice. That’s really nice.
Jeff :: The people makes it fun though.
eye4homes :: Yeah. And it’s been a lot of fun meeting you today. Very much. Getting a chance to talk to you. It’s been an honor.
Jeff :: I appreciate it as well. Thank you.
eye4homes :: Thank you so much. And everybody go and check out his website, hire him, I know we will be referring him and has wonderful company, so thank you again Jeff. Yes, thank you.
Jeff :: Thank you. Have a good weekend.
eye4homes :: You too. Okay, bye bye. That was wonderful because I mean we’re always checking out older homes for those first time buyers. I like how he said: “Finding an underwhelming house in a fabulous location.” That’s it. We’re going to borrow that. Yeah. So you guys can find us all, Tracy and I, on Eye4NorthWestHomes.com actually, and view our TV shows on Eye4Homes.tv. Yes. Until next Friday have a fabulous weekend. Yes. Bye bye.
