The Secret to Homes that Last with Barry Capps

January 2, 2024

116. The Secret to Homes that Last with Barry Capps

In this week’s podcast, we discuss how to create homes that look great and stand strong over time. Tampa builder Barry Capps gets into the core of home construction, focusing on quality and smart choices for long-lasting homes. Barry talks about the significant issue of flood risks and the importance of being upfront about it when buying a house. Barry shares practical tips for making informed decisions and stresses the need for clear information to protect homeowners. You’ll get great information from a builder who is building homes the right way.

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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wbcappsdesign 

Email: barry@wbcapps.com 

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Here's the link to the trailer for the documentary film I'm making: Built to Last: Buyer Beware.

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Transcript

George Siegal: 0:00

Thank you for joining me on this week's Home Owners Be Aware podcast. Whether you're building a home or buying an existing home, do you have any idea what went on behind the scenes to get that house built? And that's important, because how it was built will have a major effect on your life as the owner of the property. My guest today is Tampa builder Barry Capps. I met Barry when we were filming my next documentary film, built to Last Buyer Beware. What struck me about Barry was his philosophy about building a house. He doesn't just take a job to get a customer. They have to want a house that's actually being built to last.

George Siegal: 0:38

In this episode, you're going to learn what you should be expecting as the buyer and what can go wrong if you lower those expectations and buy something. That's going to be a problem for you and your family down the road. I'm George Siegal, and this is Home Owners Be Aware, the podcast that teaches you everything you need to know about being a homeowner. Barry, thank you so much for joining me today. Oh, thanks for having me, hey. So we met recently when we interviewed you for our documentary film, built to Last Buyer Beware, at a beautiful house that you're working on. One of the things that impressed me about you and I really want you to focus on is what is your mindset as a builder, especially building houses in Florida? When you help people, how do you approach that process, the way?

Barry Capps: 1:29

I approach it is I look at the house, I look at the plans and I just look at it and I'm like, can we do something better here? As the engineer and the architect kind of designed to the minimum standard, or if they designed to the higher standard and if they haven't designed to the higher standard, I try to kind of explain to the homeowner I know you really want high-end finishes. I know you want all these great wonderful finishes inside that are just magazine worthy and beautiful, but you also want those protected and normally the answer is yes, and it's just you have to ask the question at that point which one's more important.

Barry Capps: 2:04

Is it the protecting the assets or is it the magazine worthy part that's more important? Like, are you willing to make some concessions either way? Sometimes you lose the job. They just stop listening to you. Sometimes they're interested, sometimes the architect interferes because they're trying to defend what their structural engineer did.

Barry Capps: 2:24

Sometimes they want to do it, sometimes they listen Like it really kind of goes a lot of directions, but for me it starts the conversation of is this the project that I'm gonna want to do? Is this the project that I'm gonna have to come back to, because I agreed? To do some things that I don't really think would have worked for waterproofing, etc. So that's kind of how we approach it. Like I look at the job and I'm like is this something that I want to put my name on? Is there a waterproofing consultant?

George Siegal: 2:52

involved.

Barry Capps: 2:52

Is the structural engineer. Given this, some thorough thought of where we're building, based on the zoning and the FEMA requirements.

George Siegal: 3:01

Now, I don't want to assume that nobody else in your industry is like you, but I can honestly say most of the people I've dealt with do not have that mentality. I get the impression that a lot of builders think that they're that first it's a business. They're gonna do what the customer wants. If they build it for as low a price as possible, the profit margin is better. Why aren't more people thinking like you? I just I don't understand why. And if the builders aren't, why aren't more homeowners thinking like me? I?

Barry Capps: 3:30

think a lot of it is is a builder. You're an entrepreneur first, but a lot of these guys are either amazing builders like they're great builders but they're horrible business guys or they're great business guys, have their MBAs, probably did a corporate job for 20 years. Them and their wives watch Home and Garden TV. They see Chip and Joanna Gaines oh, I can do this. They go into it. They get their financing in place based on past connections and they get everything funded, but they don't have anybody qualified to do the job.

Barry Capps: 4:10

They find somebody that can show up and supervise, but the trades aren't getting the proper questions answered, or they're just listening to the trades say what they think they need to do and they're just telling them oh, you know, figure it out, figure it out. And when it's done, the house is beautiful. But fall comes, spring comes, summer comes, hurricanes come, little maintenance isn't done properly, there wasn't any long-term thought into maintenance, and then the house just kind of deteriorates without really the people knowing, and then at that point it's like all right, let's just sell and move on, and then I think that starts the cycle of these houses that just aren't built to last.

George Siegal: 4:57

Now, it's interesting because I was listening to a conversation on sports radio this morning. They were talking about Brock Purdy of the 49ers. Is he a game manager? Is he a system quarterback? Is he just in the right place at the right time? So when you hire someone to build your house, is it the guy or gal at the top? Is it the people they have working for them, that team, those subs? Because I can go through houses that I've bought in the past and see where crummy subs have done horrible jobs and I don't know if that's the builders fault for hiring them, not watching them. Is it the superintendent? What's the process? So us home buyers have a chance here.

Barry Capps: 5:33

It really comes down to the, the subs, it really does, because in Florida everything has to be specialized and I don't know if it's like this in the rest of the country. But you're almost in a position and it's somewhat convenient. But you have to have a specialized tile guy who's certified in and the Purdy system and making sure that the shower systems are watertight.

Barry Capps: 5:53

You have to have an electrician, you have to have a plumber you have to have a licensed AC guy and all those are great things, but everything becomes so specialized that you have to have somebody that can actually coordinate those trades properly and can think ahead, so that when they're roughing in, everything's there for them and you know. When they're doing their waterproofing, they make sure that these guys know to put water in their shower pan for X amount of time to make sure it doesn't leak, and most people do that, some don't, but it just comes to the fact that you really need to know, since Florida is so specialized, what these guys strengths and weaknesses are and where the gray area is. And that's where my team's good, because we've spent so many years prior to getting into new construction fixing the gray area that was never addressed during construction.

George Siegal: 6:50

Now when, as a person who's hiring somebody to build, what can I do to give myself the best chance? Do I need to be at the job site every day? Do I need to get a full list of references? Do I need to ask the builder to tell me who their subs are and what their experience is? How do I give myself the best chance of success when, in so many times, it seems like it doesn't work out? So that's a?

Barry Capps: 7:15

good question because I've been saying for about five years now that I think that the standard process is antiquated, where you go get three bids, these guys may or may not spend time. Some guys throw numbers at it just to get it. Some guys actually spend time bidding it and it seems like the guy that spends the time bidding it doesn't get the job because they're probably higher because they actually spent time or they don't really want to bid the job higher just to get it. So I think that's the antiquated process. To me, the best process is to interview three builders and just sit down and say hey, what is your process? Have your architect there. The engineer probably wouldn't show up, but it would be nice if they did.

Barry Capps: 8:01

And the builder that and there's many of them out there that says we would like to bring in a waterproofing consultant to look at these plans, we would like to have our own structural engineer kind of look at things and kind of give their opinion on it, or we can even give our opinion on it because we do our own in-house framing. And then at that point you just go to the homeowner and you present the value of what you're bringing. It's like we bring a team or other GCs. I'm not the only one that does this. It's just not anything. It's really advertised.

Barry Capps: 8:35

It's just kind of like people roll their eyes and they're like, oh, those guys are expensive, don't even call them, they're blah, blah, blah, blah and it's just like it starts this name smearing. But what they don't realize is they are expensive. But what's the cost of hiring somebody that's coming in with a competitive number, that's basically a number? At that point, until the work's completely complete, you don't really know the true construction cost and they're excited they get the bank loan and then that kind of starts the trickle down effect.

Barry Capps: 9:06

And then that's usually when it's the worst case, when they call us and we're like well, I mean you didn't hire us to begin with, I'm not going to go in there and you know, undo a bunch of stuff and walk into the anger that you're feeling towards this person because you made a bad decision. Like you had the opportunity up front to hire field-qualified guys and you chose the sex of your number. And at this point I'm sorry you just you know, in life you cut good deals and bad deals, and this one you cut a bad deal. I mean it's unfortunate for you. It smears the name of the good guys out there.

George Siegal: 9:41

Yeah, that's the story of my life. So how much should I be watching you Not Barry, but a builder when I hire them? How often should I be out at the job site and keeping an eye on things myself so I have a sense of what's going on?

Barry Capps: 9:59

It becomes a fine line where it's just not fun anymore. So a lot of times if homeowners come out too much and they see something that they don't like because it's probably not done and they send you a picture of it, at 7.30 on a Friday night with a long text about they talked to their friend who's a builder in Georgia and he said that we're all a bunch of yahoo. That's when it's kind of crossing the line and I try to bring that up with homeowners where it's like you know, if you want to watch a pot boil, turn on the water and watch a pot boil, if you want to watch paint dry, go paint a wall and watch it dry. You're going to get really bored and frustrated. So the best thing to do is maybe like every week, which is what I try to do with my job and usually is what exactly what we do?

Barry Capps: 10:42

We meet with a homeowner every week and we just kind of walk them through and we show them the exciting parts.

Barry Capps: 10:48

We kind of show them where we're having, you know, some struggles. What's the plan to get through. Those struggles are, you know, what's the plan to move forward where we are on progress schedule, you know, and that to me kind of is good because it gets in this routine of you know, because a homeowner can be there and job sites are job sites, like it doesn't matter how well you're managed, how safe everything is, how great everything's going. It just takes one guy or girl or just do something dumb right in front of the homeowner and then all of a sudden that's like all anybody's paying attention to, and it happens all the time on job sites. So sometimes it's better if they're not there for that, just because it's you know, it's like I joke, it's construction, like we're taking 150 people that didn't do so well in school, don't really care, you know, it's just a job for them and we're trying to kind of coordinate them and get them excited to produce a nice product for you, and it can be challenging some days.

George Siegal: 11:51

That's a great answer to that question. And how clean should the job site be? I worked for I hired one builder who didn't want to get a dumpster because everybody in the neighborhood would throw stuff away in it. So everything would kind of just gather on the ground and it was a pig sty. And then I've had others where you could just tell how sloppy every there seemed to be no organization. Is it reasonable or unreasonable to expect a clean job site? I mean not all the time. I understand construction is not a clean business, but how clean should it be?

Barry Capps: 12:24

It should be clean, that it should be very clean, and I know that's probably a standard response from a lot of contractors. But when a building inspector walks on to your job site and it's organized and it's clean, it changes his mentality. Same with an owner, same with subcontractors. Like a highly skilled subcontractor will come on a job site and he's like you know, I got a wheel of 800 pound countertop on a cart across here. I'm not going to spend half the day trying to, you know, move all this stuff out of my way and my guys tripped and hurt themselves, like so you know it kind of, if you're house trained in your own house, like treat it kind of like it's your own house. But there are trades that are just completely, I mean, to me they're just a write off as far as cleaning up, like drywall guys, electricians, like just give up. So I've got day laborers that kind of worked for me, that that do out certain phases, go in and clean up.

Barry Capps: 13:25

But to your point about cleanup, there's also an even more important element, which is site protection and that's the most important part, because there is nothing worse than having to fix things for subs and you can't prove who did it. So you know we put corner guards on our cabinets, corner guards on our countertops. We put plastic on our countertop in case somebody spills like gun oil or hydraulic oil or something on the countertop, and it bleeds right through because the whole thing needs to be replaced. So you know, we keep them clean and we use site protection, but there's an expense to that. And again it goes back to my point where people roll their eyes and like, oh, these guys are so expensive, oh, they're taking advantage of me. And it's like the same people are going to be rolling their eyes in nine months when they're like these guys just messed up my brand new beautiful countertop. It's like, yeah, because you didn't want to pay anybody that was going to protect them.

George Siegal: 14:24

Yeah, I'd love to be around a lot of these people. After that was five, six years point where everything in the house starts going through its first cycle. It seems like a lot of things. And then you go God, I wish I had hired somebody that that that did a better job. Now, living in South Tampa, I see some things that just boggle my mind right over by the water. Here I see houses that are concrete block on the first floor and then they put wood on the second floor. There's one house here in South Tampa I see being built entirely out of wood. I see a huge apartment complex down by Salt Shack entirely out of wood. What's going on here? Hermite's got to eat too.

Barry Capps: 15:04

It's the reality of it.

Barry Capps: 15:05

It's a cheaper way of building, you know. It's just a cheaper, more convenient way of building. You live in an area that's protected by the parks and recreation to where you can't touch an oak tree, which I agree with. I mean, it's beautiful when you drive around, but there's also a lot of bugs and things that are hungry and those areas, I mean I see what you're talking about. They're building these apartments. It's slab on grade and they're framing right on the slab and it's just like then the landscaper's coming mulch right to it. You may as well just drill a 3-8 hole with a little tube in it and say like Hermite's, welcome here.

George Siegal: 15:51

Yeah, I think it's really hard to understand what's going on there now. Sadly, we saw with our most recent storm here in Tampa and it wasn't even a hurricane, it was just a winter storm there was flooding. There was flooding around the area. In this area where you live, a lot of houses are built that are older houses that have been here for years. When Mother Nature exposes their problems, it can be really costly for the people that live there.

Barry Capps: 16:23

There's people that just finished their houses from the Hercan Adalia flooding. That just flooded again in that storm. I don't know how you would protect yourself from those houses, except you can raise them. That's one of the options. I think that's one of the more affordable options. You can build a second story on it and use that story as the garage. You can also tell it for lot value and be done with it. That would be where I would be at.

George Siegal: 16:55

It seems very problematic when a house floods more than once If you don't do anything to change anything after you're fixing it for the first flood, like there's a house in my neighborhood three times it flooded and finally they just tore it down and they're building it again. What's the commitment? What should a homeowner be thinking if they live in a vulnerable house?

Barry Capps: 17:15

I live in a flood zone and I actually do not do any remediation work, but my mother and aunt, my parents and my aunt's house two separate houses near me both flooded in Adalia. It actually flooded through the slab part of it. The reason was there's not vapor barriers under these houses. My aunt's house and my mother's house are both the same way. That ground level rises, say your toilet plan isn't sealed, or say there's an old penetration somewhere, or your shower drain isn't sealed, or under your tub isn't sealed, that water is going to percolate up into your house and go out. You'd have to get your bathroom at this point to fix it.

Barry Capps: 18:08

Now I've figured this out as I see all the people on the next door saying, oh, the water got in through this. And then they're all arguing and all the experts come out about this. What I have found is my aunt's house. Her actual drain line, sewer drain line, was crushed under her house. I think what was happening was the water was coming to the water table, percolating into her sewer line and then coming up through her bathtub and through her shower. We fixed that. We cut the slab out, obviously, and fixed it and found there's no vapor barrier under this house. I'm assuming all these houses and shore anchors were built at the same time, so they probably don't even have vapor barriers under there. At that point you can sandbag, you can do the flood vent things, you can do everything you possibly want, but you're not going to be able to prevent that percolation.

George Siegal: 18:58

If you've bought a house like that and it might be your biggest investment that you have, now you find out it has this problem. It sounds like you're pretty much screwed. What do you do? How do you possibly fix that or get out of it if you're not with means of being able to just afford the big fix?

Barry Capps: 19:19

I don't have that answer. I've got the answer that I would do. Maybe I'm in a better position, but what I would do is I would sell the house as is to somebody understanding what they have for possibly lot value, get the insurance check, figure out if you can make it work or even if you take a little bit of a loss, and just get from under it and let the neighborhood do what it needs to do, which is be redeveloped.

Barry Capps: 19:45

I think after Katrina there was neighborhoods in Louisiana where they finally called it. They bulldozed the whole neighborhood. They finally put two and two together. Something is going on too In short acres. I don't know what it is.

Barry Capps: 20:00

A lot of experts argue that the city has done something to where they're not maintaining the sewer lines. I have no idea. I have no facts on that. There's also the relation of these. Storms are coming up in the Gulf. They're hitting at a high tide. They're hitting when there's a plus two tide. They're hitting at a full moon. They're hitting when you're getting four inches of rain. You put all that combo in and the streets are going to flood. At that point I don't even know if it's the city's fault. I'd want to say that again, I'm not an engineer. But you go to Venice and Italy and that's built right on top of water. Somehow they have their thing figured out.

Barry Capps: 20:41

You go to Louisiana post Katrina. They've done whatever with the levees to figure that out. In Cape Canaveral, they've got the lock system there to keep flooding down. Then you come to St Pete. We've got a beautiful pier that we just redeveloped. We've got a stadium that we're about to build Shore Acres. They put in a brand new rec center. We just got a brand new YMCA with a middle school. There's something there to build these wonderful structures to attract people to the area. But maybe it's time to think about what we could do to prevent these nice people's house from flooding.

George Siegal: 21:23

I think people and you'd probably know this, you've been here a lot longer than me have this it's not going to happen to me mentality. When hurricane season was over, I bet a lot of people went off. We got a break for a while. Just a winter storm that came from the wrong direction rolls through and they get flooded again. One lady for the second time. At the third time her house is flooded. That's got to be pretty frustrating. Tell people what it's like for your neighbors, for victims, when they have to deal with this kind of a mess.

Barry Capps: 21:54

I have not been in their shoes Since I live in an elevated house. It's kind of like I feel guilty about it. I feel bad because these are my friends, these are people that I've known for years, I say hi to. We've had beers out on the street before just your friends, your neighbors. All of a sudden they're displaced, crying very upset. You built your house for this. You don't really know what to say. You feel terrible. It's like these are your friends, they're displaced. It's probably going to financially, even with insurance, cost them a lot of money. You know how hard they work. You see them getting up every morning, going to work. You see them getting back. It's just like. What do you say to people like that? Because in the last flood we lost our pool pumps. That's the worst thing that happened to me. You kind of want to complain about that because that sucks. But then you're like I'm about to tell somebody that just lost everything when I lost my pool pumps. You probably get punched in the face and deserve it.

George Siegal: 22:59

Yeah, that's true. I mean the number of victims that I've spoken with and you just hear how horrible Things are. Some people are on a path where they might never Recover from it. So is the bottom line. We have to make better choices and have a better understanding of what we're buying. Do you feel like some of your neighbors didn't know the risk? I know this. One woman I'm a young woman in your neighborhood had no idea her house had flooded. It had never been disclosed to her. How do we level the playing field here? I don't know like again.

Barry Capps: 23:29

Like I'm just a dumb builder that started out, you know fixing houses, but Something needs to be done. Like I don't. Like it's easy to blame the realtors, or it's easy to blame the, you know, the flood insurance. It's easy to blame everybody, call them crooks, you know, throw out a few one-liners and go on about your day, but in the reality is, you say that and then all these friends of yours are stuck with this situation.

Barry Capps: 23:50

But I feel like there has to be some kind of Recourse. Or are strict requirements, you know, it's like I mean, how hard is it to get a driver's license? Or how hard is it to, you know, pull a permit? Like it's almost impossible to pull a permit, but somehow it's. You know it's pretty easy to buy a house, it's great. But there needs to be some kind of like those same stringent guidelines where the government scares of the poop out of you, that that if you, you know, are dishonest about this, you're gonna, you know, pay a big penalty or you can be liable. Like there has to be some kind of disclosure that that prevents this from happening. Like if there has to be a way that that there is a disclosure that says this house is susceptible to this, this built, you know, I don't know how to word it like again, I'm not, but it's just, it's not fair to these people.

George Siegal: 24:43

Couldn't we start a grassroots movement from the bottom up, where we just we try to educate people? Look, when you're going to buy a property, this is what you need to ask, and if you don't get the right answers, don't buy it.

Barry Capps: 24:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely any, any. You put it back on the I don't know if it's the title insurance or the title company, like again, I don't know a lot of that stuff. I've my entire life only done real one, real estate closing, so but it seems like there you have to buy all these Insurance's and you have to pay all these huge amounts of closing, like what's another 1600 bucks or something to pay for somebody that actually truly digs into the due diligence of your neighborhood and produces a document. It's like this house is flooded three times. You know, there's got to be a way to check flood insurance claims that's public record and Disclose that. And if they buy the house and they're good with it, no, that's fair. But if they are dishonest and they buy this house, they don't know anything about it. And then you buy house that's flooded three times and maybe there's a way that you can, you know, have some kind of recourse.

George Siegal: 25:55

Yeah, this is a tough call because I think there's a lot of people that if you said, look, you can knock 10 grand off the price of your car Without airbags, I bet a lot of people would take it without airbags. So there's a percentage of people that probably would roll the dice on a house.

Barry Capps: 26:08

Mm-hmm? No, absolutely. I mean a lot of people buy it as an investment, rent it out knowing it's gonna flood and when it floods, push it over and build a. You know, build a house, sell it for a value. I mean there's a lot of ways to look at it, like apparently shore acres hadn't flooded since. Like I forgot. What Would it look? The no-name storm? Or it's like 20 something years to hear all these things on next door and Facebook and all this. It's actually one of my favorite things to read, but especially when, like all the Karen start going at it, I'm like, oh, it's getting good. My wife and I like screenshot and like look at this one. But you know, there's gotta be, you know, some kind of way of knowing if these houses flooded and when they flooded last. This would be fair to these people, because I know the neighbors across the street. For me that house had hadn't flooded the entire time.

George Siegal: 26:59

That they were there and the dollars.

Barry Capps: 27:01

I knew prior to that, you know, didn't know that it flooded because it never flooded while they were there. So I think you know that that one's fair. But there's a house to Next to them that's flooded twice since I've lived there, and now it's flooded twice since they've lived there. So it's flooded four times and as a neighbor it's like you kind of want to say something. But then what am I liable for? What if I go blow up a deal? Am I interfering with somebody's contract? And then all of a sudden I'm getting sued. It's just like we live in this world where it's like you know, you just don't know what you're allowed to say and what you're not allowed To say, what you are and what you aren't allowed to say.

George Siegal: 27:36

Yeah, I think ultimately it has to be something like a car facts report for houses and I've heard there is on some sites but where your house just gets tagged with whatever the history is, and that helps open people's eyes to the problem, because this is a life altering for people.

Barry Capps: 27:54

Oh yeah, it's devastating, like some people may not recover from it. Some people, you know they're tied in at a low interest rate, they didn't put a lot down. You know they don't have a lot of equity in it. You know there's a million scenarios and a lot of that stuff is, you know, none of my really business to pry on, but just kind of the situation and evaluation of what you see reading their comments and stuff. I mean that's just the reality of the situation they're in. You know there's some predatory buyers that would come in and buy them out but they'd still be, you know, financially, you know, liable for the difference.

George Siegal: 28:32

Yeah, so hey, let's leave people with something, hopefully a glimmer of hope, here. So I'm going to buy a house and I want to give myself the best chance. What's the one thing, or give me a few things that I should think about when I'm looking at a house, to buy it, that give me the best chance of having success?

Barry Capps: 28:52

I think if you're in Florida, I would probably go down to the building department, check in with the FEMA director and just say is there a way I can check the public records to see if this house is flooded before? And that would be kind of what I would do if you're in a flood zone. If you're in a wind zone, I would see kind of check the permits and see is there ever been any remodels on here? Because a lot of times on remodels if you go, I forget what the percentage is. I think it's like 60% or a certain percent. Then you have to bring the house up to certain codes, current codes, which is hurricane scrapping, and you know there's other tie downs and things that they make you retrofit. I haven't done it but I know about it.

Barry Capps: 29:40

See if that's been done. Just check the permits on it. It's like if you live in a house that there's been no permits pulled. You know it's built in the 50s, it's in a flood zone, there's been no permits pulled. I'd say probably as sexy as that, stainless steel appliances with shiny countertops and nice bathroom, and you know, all staged in the beautiful realtor sitting there telling you like, oh, there's five people in line. You know, make your highest offer. And it gets to an emotional decision. I think I'm going to walk away from this one. As much as I would like the C's candy basket at closing from you, I think I'm just going to go.

George Siegal: 30:18

It's kind of like dating Don't fall in love until you get to know it better. Right, Find out all the information.

Barry Capps: 30:25

Yeah, it's like that old joke, man. It's like you don't know your wife until you marry her.

George Siegal: 30:32

Yeah, I mean, and that works both ways, so. So women don't get, don't don't jump on Barry for that, but yeah that's true, so you really got it.

Barry Capps: 30:41

If my wife does see that I did well you really got to know, Throw that out there.

George Siegal: 30:47

Don't let emotions rule your decision. Let facts rule your decision.

Barry Capps: 30:53

Exactly, and it's a hard thing when you're fatigued looking for a house. I I completely understand how people get fatigued looking for a house and they make the emotional decision they want it you know they? They see all the wonderful perks and everything and that's you know. Just unfortunately, a lot of them are just lipstick on a pig.

George Siegal: 31:16

Yeah, yeah. I always like to say if something seems like a problem early on, it's probably going to be a worse problem later on. That, those little things that you go, I can live with that, maybe you can't. Yeah.

Barry Capps: 31:27

No, it's the same way with the back to your earlier terms about you know when you're on the beginning stages of a job, interviewing for a job, or you know if you're the homeowner interviewing a builder, like if there's any red flags at first, like just just take those, as they're not going to get any better.

George Siegal: 31:44

That's true, hey, Barry, thank you so much for for coming on. Is there anything you didn't say that you want to say? No?

Barry Capps: 31:51

like I said, like I'm kind of confident about my building abilities, but I'm also confident that there's a lot of contractors out there with the same building abilities and the same care and they want to do a good job. I think the problem is is we all get pigeonholed as expensive and it's really not that. So what I would say is that if somebody is looking for a general contractor, interview them and if they are a field based general contractor like a true field based general contractor, not somebody who's like, oh well, when I was in college, I, you know, dug ditches it's like okay, great, you learned a lot. A true field based contractor, somebody that's come up through the field and they're entrepreneurial and they're, they have work on their business and they have work in their business.

Barry Capps: 32:41

Like to me, that's your guy.

George Siegal: 32:43

Well, great advice. You know I wish I had met you before I built my house, but keep doing the kind of work that you're doing. I'll have all your contact information in the show notes, but I really appreciate your time. Yeah, absolutely, george. Thank you for joining me today. I know a lot of you have stories of your experience as a homeowner. Now, whether it's good or bad, I'd like you to share it with me. There's a contact form in the show notes. Fill it out. You might be a guest on an upcoming episode and if you'd like to follow the progress of our documentary film built to last buyer beware, I've also included a sign up form for our newsletter in the show notes. Thank you again for listening today. See you next time.