Real estate is local and expanding your business into new territories successfully requires keen local knowledge. In this session, Rick is on site at our development in Georgia & brings in our local expert Lloyd Streit to talk about a new affordable twist into this once “custom only” build community.
Some of the pros to a Semi-Custom build include:
- Quicker to finish building
- Lower budget
- Less decisions
- Lower chance for unexpected surprises
- Still gives you the option of custom features and designs
- An affordable way to build a home that is still unique to you
Bringing a quality product to market that blends cost and value can be challenging in the luxury space. In this 2-part session, Rick and Lloyd walk through a couple new builds describing the low country design and unique features that help us create a truly custom luxury appeal at an affordable price-points
Part 1
Rick Melero: Hello everybody! Rick Melero is here with this capital and I’m so excited because today we are in the Cumberland harbor area. It’s a project we’re involved in and one of the things that I want to do before I make this introduction is really talk about it, especially when you are investing whether you are in our fund right now or whether you’re a client considering expanding to other markets.
One of the most important things to understand is when you want to execute on business. When you want to take your business to the next level. It is imperative that you form an alliance with other professionals, specifically local experts that can help guide you through the process of investing and that can help you to execute on your strategy.
So, today I’m here with Lloy a good friend of mine and a client but one of the most important things that I want you to do today is to kind of talk a little bit about what it is that you do and what separates you as a brokerage from all the other agents that are out there and how is it that you help us to really execute on our marketing plan for the projects we’re developing.
Lloyd Streit: Great! Well first off Rick thankyou for the introduction. I appreciate that I’m Lloyd Streit, the broker owner of Atlantic salt realty. We are a brokerage located right in the downtown waterfront in Saint Mary’s and for the past eight years, I think coming up on nine years we’ve been exclusive marketers of Cumberland harbor. Cumberland harbor is a unique piece of property, arguably I think the nicest piece of coastal property in the state of Georgia right now.
We’ve been marketing it, My wife and I, since we first basically in our own mind since probably o5 and we became property owners there. It’s an incredible master plan highlighted by just a remarkable piece of property. At the end of the day it’s just as you have seen it’s just a gorgeous piece of property. The finest deep water access I would say is on the east coast and that’s without exaggeration you’ve got immediate access to the ocean. You’re overlooking both Cumberland island national seashore and you’re looking over to Amelia island. So this beautiful piece of property I have the privilege of working with Rick to develop some semi-custom program in the community and this is a way for people to get into Cumberland harbor without going the traditional custom built route. That’s what’s been happening over the last 10 to 12 years.
It’s a process my wife and I did ourselves for a beautiful marshfront built in Cumberland harbor so to move into what we’re currently working on right now. We have a site map of Cumberland harbor. Cumberland harbor is a peninsula about 1100 acres. You’ll see point Peter creek is a true deepwater creek you’ve seen minimum draft there about10 feet. We enjoy great tides here and point Peter creek exits into the sound and from there you don’t turn the rudder you’re right into open ocean from there you turn north. You’re on the intercoastal up to St. Simons turn south and you’re over to Emilia island for lunch so you can’t beat it. The area that we’re working in currently is the park place neighborhoods; these are smaller sites.
They’re alley access kind of an old school/ new urbanism take on building and we’re building the classic low country cottages there anywhere from 1650 square foot upto about 1900 square foot and having had great success. The first three we did probably a year ago sold out. We put in three more and those all sold full price and I’m proud to say also within two days that there were amazing cash buyers, no seller contribution to close. They were an exceptional value. We did one more over here in yacht club estates that sold again full price before even we cleared the land it was simply that quick a buy. We’re in the process of working with Rick to get the next phase going. We’ll continue to do more in park place because that’s a very cost effective neighborhood to build in but also Rick enjoys some fantastic property further down into the community.
Notably, some second row marsh sites on Beckett and gorgeous live oak covered sites on Dublin and Wagner, those are beautiful sites. We also look at moving the price metric north of the 400k mark so we’re looking at 450 perhaps 475 for these homes coming up in the interest of the community. The plan for the community is another day dock down at south point also some more amenities, kind of a fishing shack maybe a tiki hut type situation. The community dock here has been operational for about three or four months and we’re doing some landscaping and adding more amenities including a croquet court here which is kind of neat. The main amenities loop here at club house circle, everything is in place at six har2 tennis courts, pickleball courts and fitness center. We just renovated the pools a year ago they’re now heated totally, redone. So it’s a great place to take your golf cart there,enjoy a workout, meet friends at the spring house and it’s a lovely location. The community itself is a phenomenal value. I mean if you compare the price point and what you’re getting bang for buck as opposed to Milly island and St. Simon’s. You get a true coastal low country environment, great build quality and exceptional neighbors.
Rick Melero: Alright guys so again thank you so much Lloyd for really sharing your insights.
Lloyd: My pleasure.
Rick Melero: And to really summarize guys for those are the clients of ours in the fund and so that you understand why we’re here and why pick Lloyd it’s imperative when we’re executing on a project that’s definitely not within our footprint of our office that we’ve professionals and if you notice there’s a couple key things that I really love about what you do number one you know the project inside and out you know it more than anybody else in fact I’ve seen occasions where other people come to you for advice because they know that you’re the local experts. Number two you guys are proactive about your marketing being able to go out there is something I couldn’t possibly do even if I owned it and wanted to list it on mls because you guys are bringing in customers and you’re selling our products as a part of that package.
So when you’re getting customers you’re already selling them a home a lot package which is our project we’re working on it so that really creates an amazing opportunity in fact the last two we have I don’t even know what stage we’re in construction, we’re in right now and we’re gonna go check it out a minute but you guys already had it pre-sold before we even get it completed so that’s a beauty of being able to move forward with it also. Again guys stay tuned as we shared you more the tactics we’re using but again remember that you don’t have to do it all yourself that’s why investors are in the fund with us it’s turn key and you get to leverage experts like Lloyd who are helping us to execute to make a profit and still make a difference in that local market.
Part 2
Rick Melero: Hey guys! Rick Melero here with His capital and I’m here with Lloyd good friend of mine and we’re actually currently in one of our projects and one of the things that I want to share with you investors that are out there in the fund and also clients that are just trying to learn to improve your business. You know it’s really essential when you’re going to be developing projects that you separate yourself and that you bring a quality project to market but as an investor you also have to make sure you find that balance between cost and the actual value so today what I want to do is have Lloyd our expert here whois a local asset for us for us to share with you what are some of the upgrades. What are some of the things where we’ve spent the money properly so that we can build a value and still give a great product to the end consumer.
Lloyd Streit: Well, thankyou Rick I’m Lloyd Streit the broker owner for Atlantic salt realty here in St.Marys Georgia with Rick Melero out at park place. This is the park place is an enclave in Cumberland harbor and this area is ideally suited to doing what we’re currently doing we’re
Standing on right now semi-custom homes what is a semi-custom home, what we do is try to hit certain price points for the marketplace also quicker speed of build time but not give up any iota of quality so these homes are being built by our custom builders and that’s a significant difference from what you’re going to see in the average tract home landscape out there.
So, the quality features of this home are remarkable, something we can kind of walk through. We first start off with overall design so this is a design called the Ossebok cottage by one of the more renowned architectural firms out there. It embodies low country architecture. Everything in common harbor is low country so we work with firms such as Eric Moser design. We work with Seder design, we work with Allison Ramsey which is one of the most renowned low country architects in the U.S. We bring some of the best builders in the region here and that’s something we’re kind of going to walk through and it’ll be able to show more of how we build quality into these homes which makes them an extraordinary value.
Rick Melero: Absolutely, so come on let’s go.
Lloyd Streit: First off you noticed 10 foot high ceilings, it’s an important feature here I think it’s unique to these custom builders is we don’t bring in pre-made trusses so everything is stick built on site which is a significant change, a lot of times you see track home builders and they’ve get a tractor-trailer load of pre- manufactured trusses which might work and might not work. These fit exactly to the build specification on site which is a big difference. Everything’s fire blocked, everything also is 16 inch on center other spec builds you’re going to see are 24 inch on center.
So they continue to build the quality you look at how they frame out a window for instance how the case on that window works also another feature that these guys put in there and it’s an expensive upgrade is the cable they builds down so they have a crew actually the crew of ladies comes in this is their job and they’ll attach that into epoxy in on the floor.
Literally torque the building down on itself on top of that if you notice further up on the window jam you’ve got your hurricane straps so the homes become very very rigid in that regard, another bit of quality in there. Moving out of the master into the hallway comes into a large open space area. You’ve got an island, you have a butler’s pantry in here. If you notice we’re using all high-tech can lighting, higher energy efficiency also by virtue of it being led you don’t see the heat generated by incandescent which is a big difference in that regard and also we go with a higher seer rating that is probably 14 or 15 seer rating hvac system.
So, you’re building some energy efficiency in the bat as well as high degrees of insulation in the walls and in the ceiling field as well. In here you’ve got your laundry room they’re using a modified pec system for water distribution which is a more high tech way of plumbing in there.So this one is again the Ossenbach cottage 1815 square feet attached garage right next door we’re building Cumberland that’s 1625 square foot detached garage.
So, traditional low country architecture is normally a two-story small coastal cottage. This is the Cumberland design by Eric Moser architects and it is a classic low country you’ve got your master down and you’ve got two bedrooms sharing a half bath so it’s a three bedroom two and a half bath home. We did a couple of unique things here. We built this home design once before in the community learned a lot from it so we have some exciting features inside I want to share with you on this build. What’s neat about this build is again you’re seeing the 10 foot high ceilings so you’ve got a lot of open space in here if you notice the green, we do a wood pre-treatment on the build prior to putting the sheetrock up that’s just additional protection on the build itself.
So, heading upstairs wanted to show you one of the changes we made in this build that we really think is a great idea so we’re in the front bedroom on the second floor of the Cumberland build and we learned a couple of things from the previous build. We had two gable dormers. In other words there was a window there coming into the bedroom but the other gable window actually shone into the closet.
That was sort of we felt a waste of opportunity so we went back to the architecture and said look can you do this we’d like a single shed dormer, we call it a three lens shed dormer here brings in a lot of natural light into the room and ended up with still a very nice sized closet in here and then there’s also additional storage underneath storage on both sides of where the shed dormer is in there so it allowed for still a great closet in there more storage but more importantly a much more natural lit bedroom looking out to a park, watch your neighbors and it’s been
I think it’s a win for us. Part of the reason why the home sold so quickly was I think this redesign we’re very proud of reconfiguring to meet the needs of the clients and we see ourselves building more of this in the community as well.
So, right now we’re standing in the back bedroom again on the second floor and when we reconfigured the front bedroom it also allowed the architect to make some changes elsewhere in the building. So, the landing spaceright behind us is now six foot wide, ideal for a small home office right now. There you’ve got some great windows as well for natural light. I changed this room up a lot as well, most notably you have a great closet here full-size closet but you’ve also got a huge amount of space under eave storage here as well.
So you’ve got that here which is extensive width of the home for additional storage combined with the two additional storage spaces up front so by reconfiguring that I think I was an absolute win-win for the second floor of this build make it more attractive and more efficient for the people purchasing the house so that’s we’re very enthused about this and we’ll continue to fine-tune these models what’s neat about working these builders is that they gain knowledge everytime they build that and they’ll come back to me and say look I think we can do this instead and it makes for at the end of the daya better product.
Rick Melero: So, Lloyd thankyou once again for sharing with us everything that we’re doing here as a group as an investment firm and what I want to encourage you guys to do is again for those investors that already a part of the fund you’re part of this and we’re going to be growing this and scaling this and really looking for ways to add value in this marketplace but if you haven’t done already and you’re interested you can learn by going online and check out our website and see exactly what we’re about and again I want to give you an opportunity to share with you a little bit more about how people can get in touch with you if they’re looking at buying in this area or maybe getting involved with us in another way.
Lloyd streit: Absolutely, our website is atlannticsaltyrealty.com get on there, you can register on the website we also have a lot more detail at cumberlandharbourga.com that’s the british spelling of harbors we have the bills profiled in there that’s a site map, there’s a lot of science of the community so it’s a great way to get introduced to the community. You can also register online as well to come out and tour the community so it’s a great opportunity. I want to thank Rick for his involvement in the community. This is great and we’re extremely successful in terms of our endeavor thus far and we only see it getting better and better as we add more homes to the mix.
Rick Melero: Absolutely, thank you very much.
