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You are here: Home / Archives for Home Values

August 3, 2016 By Rob Myers Leave a Comment

Avoid that Sinking Feeling

An article recently caught my attention- it has to do with a condominium building built in San Francisco that has started to sink. Of course, this isn’t any small condo building, this is a high rise, with multi-million dollar units and high profile owners. Of course, the building’s reps claim that the building started to sink when a government transit station was started adjacent to the building site. The transit people have countered that the  building’s foundation was designed wrong and that’s why things are moving. The one thing I know absolutely-the building’s homeowners had nothing to do with either thing- yet they are the ones caught in the middle.

Things you don’t see is one place many builders and developers skimp. If they aren’t going to own it later, they often cut the quality of these things or will try a new, riskier technique or material if it saves them money. No one will see it, who will be the wiser? Well, physics exposes all shortcuts! Cheat on flashings, sooner or later water gets in. Cheat on concrete, uh oh! In this case, I would have thought that the review process might have thrown up a flag if the foundation design wasn’t up to the task at hand. On the other hand, that’s something that the developer’s design team should know about. Ultimately, the truth will come out in court-there’s no way this isn’t going to end up there.  Sweating about things you won’t see is much of what I do- that’s where I protect my customers, my employees, my vendors, and, ultimately, my company and my family. Sometimes it frustrates  vendors, designers, or workers, but it isn’t their name on the sign. In San Francisco- regardless of who did what, that building is sinking- 16″ so far, which is massive!- and I’m not sure that there’s anything that can be done to stop it from sinking more. Eventually, it should find an equilibrium, but how far down it will go before that is anyone’s guess. And what that means for people that paid a ton of money to live there and will be stuck in the middle of a fight they couldn’t have know was going to theirs, and they will play a minimal role in solving, is anyone’s guess. Story on Sinking San Francisco Building

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Filed Under: Building a home, Financing, Home Values, Maintenance, Remodeling

May 27, 2016 By Rob Myers Leave a Comment

Artwork is Timeless

I had the opportunity to tour an amazing home in Cleveland Heights last night. Several things made the home amazing to me- first was the impeccable way the owners had restored nearly everything in the home, saving the pieces that froze the home into the early 20th century- things like what had to have been one of the first intercom systems- and undoing some of the unfortunate “upgrades” of previous owners. What truly struck me, though, was the original worker’s attention to detail. Hand carved and custom made corbels for transition points in walls, custom carved bits for the stairway newels, hand fabricated caming in leaded glass windows throughout the home, and thoughtful floorplan elements that created private and public places inside and outside, all around the home.  Hand crafted doors both interior and exterior, with beveled glass that creates visual points of interest all around the home. Everywhere you turn, there’s something that a craftsman born in the 1800’s cut, sanded, beveled, installed, or finished with great attention to detail and personal pride. The home was built like a fortress, standing guard on a 2 acre corner for over 100 years, sheltering it’s occupants from  the First World War, the Depression, the Second World War and all the history that came since. To build a home in this manner today can be accomplished, but at a cost north of the $10 Million mark. Of course, the craftsmen that knew how to do such fine leaded glasswork, or custom carving of plaster and wood are long dead. Their work, though, lives through time-echoing throughout our industry as a reminder that, many years ago, homes were built by artists.

arlington stairs  Arlington dining room

This home is for sale, and if you are of a mind to become a caretaker for this piece of liveable artwork, here’s a link to the Realtor website to make an appointment. Arlington Road for sale

Filed Under: Audio Visual Systems, Building a home, Financing, Home Values, Maintenance, Remodeling

April 4, 2016 By Rob Myers Leave a Comment

The Business of Building

Several years ago there was a study done based on exit polling from model home visitors on what they thought builders make on each home. This was done in the context of a national survey by the NAHB (National Association of Homebuilders) on what builders actually make. Most people believe that builders make over 20% on their products. Nationally, builders were actually making between 0 and 5%. The cost of running the business was 10% of gross revenue. Recently, another such study was done. The cost of simply running the business has risen to 12% of gross revenue, and overall  profitability dropped those same 2%. What this means is that building companies, nationally, are under tremendous pressure to stay profitable while still satisfying their customers. We see this pressure every day. Since we started Myers Homes in the early ’90’s, most of the builders that existed when we started are gone. Their staffs scattered, their customers orphaned, and their vendors cast off. Since 2005, nearly 70% of the builders in our market have vanished! We, though, are still here. Our customers still get a return call if they need information or help with something, our vendors are still  here, and we’ve retained most of our staff over the years. Often, especially in a bid situation, we are asked to change our business model to accommodate the pricing structure of others. We’ve recently lost a few jobs because we wouldn’t/couldn’t get low enough in our pricing. I’ve found that price is paramount only for the shortest moment of the transaction- right up until the contract is signed. For the rest of the duration of the transaction- which may last for a year or more of plan development, construction and more years of warranty support, price isn’t an issue at all, but service becomes the most important thing. In fact, most of the people I meet that had bad experiences building or remodeling with another company never talk about the pricing choices they made and are only reflecting on the bad products or service they received in exchange. Maybe that’s why we still work for our customers many years after the initial  sale. Call us- give our way a try. It’s much more relaxing!

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Filed Under: Audio Visual Systems, Building a home, Financing, Home Values, Maintenance, Remodeling

February 11, 2016 By Rob Myers 2 Comments

Craftsmanship never gets Old!

This week I had the chance to tour a few of Washington DC’s iconic buildings. What struck me was the fantastic detailing and craftsmanship in buildings built during the country’s infancy. The British burned down the Capitol Building during the war of 1812, and craftsman began immediately to rebuild it. Using strictly human powered hand tools, they built brick arches, groined ceilings and domes and trimmed them out and glazed them with the most meticulous attention to detail. Structures that today would be simply covered in drywall, they covered in hand-made millwork of massive size, carved plaster flowers and plants of intricacy and realism, and handcut glass that was made to fit individual domes and windows. Massive marble and sandstone columns with custom carved capitols and bases reflecting the things of importance to our countrymen from that period add to the gravitas of the structures. Inside the building are sculptures and artwork reflecting master artists from the past and reflect the weight of importance placed on people and events from that time period. Of course, more recent works reflect more recent events and people. Someday, people from a future United States, will marvel at the workmanship and care taken from even these more recent works, and will reflect on those that crafted this crucible of freedom. The permanence of what we build is something I think of often. What will people in the future think about what we’ve built, and what kind of people we were that built what the future will, hopefully, value and embrace. The homes and projects we build are a reflection of ourselves, and the times we live in, and will be a sort of time machine that future generations can look through to see us as if they were looking through a time travel looking glass. I hope they like what we’ve crafted as much as I now admire the work of these long dead and nameless craftsman that painstakingly sweated the details back in 1814-

Capitol Dome  Capitol Building

Filed Under: Building a home, Financing, Home Values, Maintenance, Remodeling

December 11, 2015 By Rob Myers Leave a Comment

A little Something We’ve Been Doing

I often take snippets of bad movies that have made an impact on me, and use those as analogies for things that happen to us every day. One such snippet comes from an obscure Gene Hackman/Keanu Reeves movie called  The Replacements . There’s a scene where Hackman and Reeves are talking about outward calm vs. inner turmoil, and Hackman says that “we’re just ducks on a pond”- above the water, little to no movement, below the water line, where you don’t see anything, little duck feet moving furiously. Often, construction is like that. Seemingly little getting accomplished, and then all of a sudden massive progress. During that quiet time, though, the groundwork for later work is happening. Pipes being laid, ground being prepped,  foundations being readied. Then, BOOM, seemingly all at once a project is close to completion. This summer, we had many “ducks-on-a-pond” times and now, as projects are making great progress, BOOM, we’re getting close to finishing. Seems like all at once. Yet, all of us working know just how furiously our feet were moving all summer and fall to get us to this point-  check out one of these projects- Poolhouse Progress

Filed Under: Building a home, Financing, Home Values, Maintenance, Remodeling

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