Cochrane Home Finale

If you have been following along for a while then you know TSI's very own Director of Design, Breck Crandell has been on a journey of building his own home here in the city of Detroit.

In this episode Breck shares his thoughts about the journey a month post completion.

Breck shares insights into what it was like to not only design, but to also build his own home, what lessons he learned from the process, and most importantly, how this experience has made him a better architect.

Here's a glimpse of what you'll learn: 

• Total timeline and cost to build 
• Favorite memories from the build 
• How does this home change housing options in Detroit? 
• What it was like having Mayor Duggan tour the home? 
• Who would benefit most from this type of design? 

Learn more about the Cochrane Home

Learn more about Houm

Link to full show notes

Ready to move forward with your project, or have questions about building with shipping containers? Contact us here and we will put you in contact with the right member of our team.

Make sure to follow us on Instagram to stay up to date on new project releases, trainings, and more. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to the Innovative Real Estate Podcast with your hosts Leslie Horn, Brett Crandall, and Claire Olilla. We're here to make your life easier as a real estate developer and teach you everything we've learned about designing and building innovative homes, multifamily, and mixed use structures. On this podcast, we'll be giving you our best advice, trainings, and QA segments so you can learn from our years of experience and make your innovative vision a reality.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Hello and welcome back to another installment of your favorite podcast, Innovative Real Estate with Three Squared Inc. We are your hosts, Leslie Breck and Jill. And today we are revisiting a past episode, a couple of past episodes, actually, um, where we're going to be talking about uh a project that is close to home and closer to the heart, uh quite literally uh in figure. Um, it is the Cochrane home. It is the first of its kind, a prototype in collaboration with H O U M Home and Three Squared Inc. as the first of its kind. And it is my house. Uh it's the house that I built uh for myself with an army of other individuals. I think everybody in this call was involved in many ways, shapes, and forms. And we are here to talk about the Cochrane Home now that it is completed, and I am actually taking this recording from my office inside the Cochrane home, which is uh which is pretty spectacular. So that's where we're gonna start things off today. I think we're gonna go uh with some questions, just interview style with the team. But Leslie, any opening comments.

SPEAKER_03 1:39

Wow. You did it.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

We did it.

SPEAKER_03 1:47

Well, yeah, but yeah, you're the one that stepped into it literally. And um, you did. You had an army of people that just love and adore you and respect you, and even from the city and the I wouldn't say not everyone from the city, but the higher ups from the city, boy, oh boy, have they really, really embraced this. And I'm excited about where it's gonna go. I guess my opening statement would be um I'm proud of you, proud of you for taking that leap. As we know in any type of innovation and any type of new model, you have to build it. Starting three squared was the same situation. Everyone's like, Well, have you built one before? Like, no, we haven't. And so the moment you put your money where your mouth is is really a dedication and an excitement because now you've proven the model and now you know what you can improve on, which is actually the most important thing. And it that your your home is beautiful. You uh you and Miriam have have really truly made it um a heartfelt home. And it's it's beautiful inside and out. So those are my uh those are my first comments.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Oh, it means so much, Leslie. Thank you. And for our listeners, just a reminder: this is in the North Corktown neighborhood of Detroit, Michigan. So where we have planted our flag right around the corner from Three Squared Inc.'s office of operations, our model center, which is also located in the same neighborhood. So it's very weird on days that I walk to work now.

SPEAKER_03 3:26

Well, I'm just tickled that you aren't too far away. That's the whole thing. Kind of got used to you and Miriam and the and the pups. Um, so I'm glad you guys are still close. And we always have Nancy's to meet in the middle.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

That is true. Hometown heroes.

SPEAKER_03 3:43

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. This is fantastic. So I know we have a bunch of questions. Jill, you want to start off with a couple of questions first? I mean, you've you were uh you were never on the sidelines, but I think uh the the three squared team as a whole, you got to see the brilliance of this unfold um as not just a new model but also as a new innovation in architecture. So I'm really interested to hear some of the questions that you might have and you might be able to bring to the table here.

SPEAKER_02 4:14

Yeah, I think I'd like to kick things off by saying a key phrase that Breck has repeated tenfold while under the process of constructing his own house. You've said that this process has made you a better architect. And so I want you to touch on some of the key points that you learned during the process because I've seen it personally that client meetings that we've had for single-family residential projects have significantly improved because of your experience building your own home. It's kind of like a lost trade where architects used to be the constructors of their buildings as well, not just the drawers of the building. So now that you've been through the process, I guess how do you how do you feel like you're a better architect? Can you explain that?

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Oh, geez, how much time do we have? Um I I mean, I don't even know where to begin. Jell, that's like the million-dollar question. Like, how hasn't it impacted me and my profession? Uh let's start with you know, design to drawing. I mean, it's one thing to build something digitally, but a digital twin has no bearing on gravity or ladders or how tight a lot is. Um, so there's a lot of lessons learned in the transition from the digital world into like physical reality. And um, things you think that you've detailed properly or that you've like resolved, you're like, oh yeah, I I know that detail that works great. And then you you're the one who's actually like up hanging 25 feet in the air uh by one arm, like trying to get a screw into like this little crevice. Uh it doesn't work. It doesn't work. So, like um from order of operations to how you detail things and how you think about um the process of putting things together, um, it definitely challenges you to uh to empathize with the people who are physically on site working on these things. And uh you understand where this is not my first build. Um, so you know, I've been on job sites before, but this was a unique home in a lot of ways. And you and you feel for the the builders who actually have to put these things together and you understand the frustrations that builders often have with architects who are like, oh no, I figured this out, like this will totally work. And then the builders like, no, it doesn't, and this is why. And uh for me, this process, it was you know, me and the the crew that was working under Ty, that's the general contractor um for Living Edge. He uh he and I worked through many of those details in real time, um, putting them together. I would say that was probably like one of the biggest things. Uh, and then navigating the process, uh, the process as a whole from start to finish. Like when we're working in the office, like, yeah, we're we're involved in the conceptual, the design, um communicating a variety of different moving parts with the site and utilities and things of that nature, and then communicating with the city, maybe. But um, when you get into the entire process, when you have to talk to the bank, when you have to provide financial data and you have to make sure that the value matches the construction costs and you have to navigate taxes. And then after the fact, what do appraisals and comparable sales look like so you can recoup the value of the project that you've now built? Um it's it's a really harrowing experience. And um, and I think that I learned equal amounts in the construction type and putting it all together and tying in the systems, as I did with the process from the bottom to the top and how much effort it takes for somebody to develop a project, be it a house for themselves or be it a development opportunity. Um, there's a lot of things that you as the owner have to contribute. It's not like, hey, here's it, here's the money and go do it. It's like, oh, I need to make all of these decisions, you know, hundreds of micro decisions on a weekly basis, and a lot of communication that you have to have across multiple parties. So I feel a lot more educated uh because of the research that I had to do into taxes, into appraisals, into financial institutions, into city politics. Uh, you know, we had to go before planning and we had to talk to zoning and we had to talk to buildings and engineering, and then we had to navigate the Detroit City Water and Sewer Department. And all of these are different steps with a different cast of characters. And so learning who they are and what they do and how they fit into the process allows me to better position myself when I'm talking to a client where now I could empathize with them, having gone through it myself, and I can help them navigate the process that much smoother because I know what the next step is going to look like. It's a very long-winded answer, but uh, nothing less.

SPEAKER_03 9:06

Do you have a favorite memory about this process and um of building the home?

SPEAKER_00 9:12

Favorite memory? I mean let me put it this way. I'm kind of like uh have you ever finished like a television series or like finished a video game, and you're like kind of sad because you feel like you lost a bunch of friends. I'm like, I found myself like uh really reflecting on the entire time that I spent here because my family and friends didn't see me for the six months we were like in full construction. Um, I saw my work family pretty consistently, but uh the people that I was hanging out with were the the crew on the job site. And it kind of struck me like lightning the day we finished, or I'm like, I might never see that carpenter again, or I'm not gonna talk to that drywaller on a daily basis, or my plumber's gone, you know. It just kind of like set in that um you built a you built a whole new family through the process. Um, I remember Clear's Day, like because we built the house out of uh structural insulated panels, and so they they fit in like giant Lego pieces, kind of you know, tie together. So you put the walls up and then the floor and then the second floor, and then you put the roof on. And uh, and I remember Clear's Day, you know, putting in that last roof panel because like the sun was perfectly aligned with that opening and we like put it through and then slid it down and it just like locked it in. I'm like, wow, there's a roof over my head now. Um so that was that was like a key moment. It just I just sticks with me. It was like a mental picture that I remember is like tying the house together at that moment.

SPEAKER_03 10:47

Well, everyone's gonna ask you about your how much it cost. We might as well get that question out of the way. And kind of um, what do you think um the total time? I think if you had taken out some of those delays, which were so out of your control, I'd really like to hear the actual time versus what you think it could have been done in and cost, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

Yeah, well, I would I have a great way of explaining this because um we were building two almost identical projects uh at the same time. And so what I could do is I can I can align this with uh the project that we had going um in a similar timeline in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Uh it was with uh Royal Development, so we call it the Royal Home. And uh and it's the exact same size as my house, a little bit different configuration, uh, but very, very similar to the Cochrane home. So the Cochrane home, all in all, cost me about$500,000 to build. Um and so that's a that's a 1,600 square foot three-bedroom, two-bath uh with some very, very efficient systems, um, high energy efficient, low energy usage. And that's including a 430 square foot accessory dwelling unit and uh garage that's attached to the house with a bridge. So there are also a lot of bells and whistles in this house that if I was building this as a developer, like if I was going to immediately turn around and sell this house, I wouldn't have done. But because this is my house, like custom quarry tile, custom kitchen cabinetry, custom countertops, I put a lot more energy into the lighting strategy throughout the house. We went with a uh radiant in-floor heating system that's supplemented by wall-mounted chiller units that can heat and cool individual spaces. So there's definitely some things that I added. I think that that balances out with the amount of effort that I was physically putting into the project as well, because you know, labor's not free. And I, you know, spent time here working with the crew on site. So my house basically boiled down to about$209 a square foot. Um, if you look at hard costs, and like I said, that is some bells and whistles, and we took some liberties, and I also made some mistakes, which which cost me uh that I can't deny. Um, even being in this industry as long as I have, like, you're still gonna make mistakes. Uh like, don't flag your site before you dig holes, uh, because then you dig up the flags, and then you have to pay somebody to come and redo the flags. You know, it's it's like silly things like that. And you're just like, oh yeah, well, that makes sense now. Um, all right, so let's compare that. Uh, we're looking at$209 a square foot,$500,000 all in, compared to uh the Royal Home Project, which came in at$194 a square foot. And that one was completed in five months as opposed to my eight months. Um so you know what once you've once you've paid forward the lessons learned, and if you're not putting in the bells and whistles, now you could you could think to yourself, like 209 versus 194 doesn't seem like a huge difference. Multiply it out. That's a huge difference in cost. I mean, every dollar per square foot is a massive amount of savings on a project. And so we're looking at you know, future projects at scale, we're targeting 185 with this with this construction type by using high efficiency systems and these panelized uh buildings that are constructed off-site. So that's our goal. Um, the timeline for this project was, as Leslie mentioned, uh very caught in red tape, just because it was a part of Detroit. But once we got through that process and um we navigated those approvals and worked through some tax things that we had to get before we started construction, all in all, the the construction timeline was about two months for below grade systems. So that was you know, leveling the site, clearing all the trees, putting in our uh plumbing runs for the water and sewer, and then pouring a slab. That took about two months, uh, just in terms of like scheduling who does what, when, where, how. Um, and there's a lot of big equipment involved there. And then the actual house was a slab and then became a house and was completed and move in ready within six months of that. So it was about two months of site work and then six months of you know on-site work as a compared to the Fort Wayne project, which soup did not start to finish, you know, first shovel in the ground to hey, here's the keys was was five months in total, which is kind of mind-boggling to me.

SPEAKER_03 15:27

Uh and I confirmed with JT that those fees included his soft cost. Now, I do know there was some preferential treatment from the city. There might have been some dealing with utilities and such, which um I know we you certainly did not get here with the city of Detroit. Um, but I thought that was so interesting that it did include his soft cost. Um and he came in under budget.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Yeah, no, that is an all-in price. Yeah, which is excluding land. Oh, except land. That is that is true. That is true.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

So I think this is a good segue because my follow-up question to that is can you start to touch on some of the types of ways that this can impact the ways that the tradespeople work in the construction in the construction industry? Because number one, we know there's a shortage of affordable housing. And number two, if you're building new construction, we know that there's a shortage of tradespeople.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

Yeah, well, there's not just a shortage of affordable housing, there's a shortage of how to housing, period, like point blank. Like you can't find expensive homes, you can't find cheap homes, you just can't find homes. If you're on the market looking for one and you spent any time on Zillow, uh you understand what I'm saying. Um there there has to be a number of shifts. And I know you're focusing on like tradespeople in general. I mean, there definitely needs to be more people in training. Uh, we need more more tradespeople, period. Um, we definitely need to see uh more options because you're limited and to who you work with, which means that they can fix prices, which means their prices are just gonna continue to get higher and higher, and building materials are getting higher as well. But everybody needs to kind of stop and reposition their mentality towards this, because um, we're not gonna be doing the same things the same way forever. Um there has to be a shift. And this means for the way that banks are approaching new construction loans, uh, because I called 14 different banks and 10 of them hung up on me when I told them my address because they can't provide new construction in the city of Detroit. Um for the way that appraisals work, because if you try to do something that no one else has done before in a neighborhood, like build an accessory dwelling unit, you will not have a comparable. There's no comparable price, so how can they value it if it doesn't exist? You're the first one. So the next person can use you as a comparable, but if you're the first one to put your flag in the ground, um they don't have a way to look at it. In the same way that tradespeople are gonna come in and say, I've never worked with a foam insulated structural panel before. So like I don't know how to approach this. Um, or I'm gonna charge you more as a result, or I even got a couple instances where like, I don't want to work on this because it's not sticks and bricks. So I don't I don't really know how I'm gonna approach like quoting this, and I don't want to give you a number and then lose my shirt on it, you know. So we we came across this in in multiple categories where if you challenge convention, if you do something different, you're gonna have an uphill battle. But I've also noticed that the support coming from the other end, which Leslie opened the conversation with, the support from the city acknowledging this and saying it to us, to our faces, that we know this, this, and this needs to happen in order to actually allow more housing to be built. Because quite frankly, the narrative uh does not match reality. You could say you need more housing, but if you're not paving a path for people to actually have a direct line of sight to build housing, um, we're not getting anywhere.

SPEAKER_02 19:05

Rick, I want to commend you because you're fighting the good fight to build beautiful affordable housing. It's not just like throwing together something that's gonna end up costing the end user more in the long run because you're gonna have to replace some cheapy parts that are not good quality. You built this for longevity, you built it for a greater audience. So I really want to commend you for that. And I also want to hand it over to Leslie because I wanted Leslie to touch on. We've had some really important guests tour this house and get some inside looks during the construction process, all the way through the ribbon cutting ceremony. So, Leslie, can you touch on who came by this house?

SPEAKER_03 19:44

Oh my lord, yeah. You know, it was such a great moment. It was such a great day. I think um had a fabulous ribbon cutting day. It was amazing. Breck, I'll tell you the part that touched me most was um our guest of honor asking Miriam to support him in cutting the ribbon. I thought that was just so brilliant and just um so well deserving. Uh, we had Mayor, um Mayor Duggan come in and he actually came in and he was supposed to spend like, you know, 10, 15 minutes with us. Oh my lordy. This man came in, got got a really good explanation, had just absorbed everything as a sponge, went out, did the whole ceremony, and then Breck, um, you dragged him back in, but he did not go screaming. I think he would have been screaming had he not gone in. I think this um your next 45 minutes with him was such an amazing um show of accomplishments, number one, but also something new. They kept referring to it as the AI AI house, right? Hey, is this the house it was the is this the AI designed house? So tell us about that day and how you felt about that whole process and really um what the city is now saying about this.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

I mean, the whole thing's still surreal to me. Like it doesn't like I live here now. I've been living here for uh over a month now, but it's still like it's it hasn't quite hit me yet, I guess, because it's like the ultimate thing an architect an architect can do, I guess. You know, like if you go into architecture school, you kind of are like, I have to design and build my own house someday. But it also means it's like the most terrifying thing that an architect can do, uh, because you're under a magnifying glass. Um, so chill, I appreciate the term beautiful. Um, that's because I was surrounded by an incredible team who uh who supported me through design and construction. Uh, wouldn't have had it any other way. Uh and it just it culminated with a a ribbon cutting, which I didn't again believe was happening until it was happening, where mayor Mike Duggan, the mayor of Detroit, Uh showed up himself with his whole security detail and a who's who of Detroit. And then there was news in my face. And there were developers from every corner and higher-ups and city council members. And it was just, it was kind of crazy to be able to meet them all face to face, shake their hands, and to be able to explain why we did what we did and how we did it. Um, how we built faster than anybody else in the neighborhood, how we blew their price tag out of the water. I mean, average houses are going up in this neighborhood for upwards of$350 a square foot, as opposed to my$209 a square foot. And the promise of what's to come, because this is a model. It's exactly that. Um, this is not meant to be the end all be all. This is to show seeing is believing in our line of work. For the same reason that Leslie built the first shipping container building in the state of Michigan that was permitted, uh, is the same reason why I built this home right up the street, uh, so that we have models that we can show people and explain to people what we're talking about instead of just like looking at digital renderings all day long. Like you gotta, you gotta actually commit to it. And so that's what we did.

SPEAKER_02 23:15

That was amazing. That was a fantastic day. Important to clarify in this process is there is a scalability and a repeatability factor to the home model, but it's by no means a cookie-cotter model that can be copy and pasted directly. It's not going to be like a boring development. Not boring, but just like the same thing as anybody else that's like a traditional no bells and whistles construction. How does the home model differ? And what's the greater picture and goal that goes hand in hand with that?

SPEAKER_00 23:52

Well, yeah, it all it all boils down to the to the algorithm, to the software um that's behind this, because uh ultimately it was it was a chunk of software that was developed, developed by our team um that designed the house originally. Uh, it assessed the specifics of the lot based on GIS data. It knew neighboring structures, it knew where trees were, um, but it accounts for the sun's path throughout the year. Like it knows which way is south and which way is north, and so it knows where the sun's coming and going. And so it generated an optimized layout that maximizes natural daylight into the house, which reduces heating and cooling costs and maximized solar gains. Uh, it has operable windows that were planned out, so you get passive cooling in the very hot, hottest points of summer. Um, and it responded directly to unique views that the house has. Uh, and for that very reason, um, you could take the same footprint of this building because there are a lot of lots in the city of Detroit and in the Midwest in general that are the same size as this lot. And you could put it through this algorithm, and every single one of them is going to be a unique structure. They're all built the same way, they're all going to use the same systems and construction types, which means they're all going to cost virtually the same amount. But every single one of these homes, these info homes that we're going to work with partners to develop, are going to be unique to their context. And that's that's the important part, is because you're not going to see these bastions of nowhereville where you just see like every third house is repeated. You know, you get you've been in those neighborhoods. There's no identity, there's no character. Um, as opposed to like if you took this house and put it on the lot next door, it would be a different house, even if it's 60 feet away. Uh, and I think that's what's really magical about the the paradigm that we're we're proposing here. Um, is that yeah, it is repeatable, but every single one of them is gonna be unique as the people that live in it.

SPEAKER_03 26:02

I love that. I love that. So, Breck, um you had mentioned earlier like a mistake or two. What would you do, like the first two things that come to your mind that you would do totally different, you would never do again, you're mad at yourself, or you know, one of those kind of things, like, ah, I could have done it better.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

Well, I would have had a crane, that's for damn sure. Uh we set all panels by hand, and uh I I don't think my my shoulders will ever recover from that. It was it's a really tight lot. So the lot itself is only 30 feet wide, it's a hundred feet deep. Um, you can't you can't choose your family and you can't choose your neighbors. I have been very fortunate and blessed on both uh of those uh because my neighbors have been fantastic. And so they're very, very supportive of the project and allowed me to you know put the end of a ladder in their yard in order to get access to my roof, things like that. But as we start to infill these and you've got a house immediately adjacent to you on both sides, it's gonna be more challenging. So I think some of those equipment lessons, um, definitely something we learned from that cost a lot more in labor um than it did in the time or the money that we may have saved on that end. Um, I went with a very, very unique heating and cooling system. Um, it is an air-to-water heat pump. Now, when I say that in the United States, most people are like, I don't know what that is. You've probably heard of an air-to-air heat pump, better known as a mini-split. This is not a mini-split. This is a chiller unit. And the chiller unit powers all of my heated floors throughout the building. It powers a chiller unit that's a wall-mounted unit that looks like a mini split, but it's actually got fluid flowing through it and then a fan that blows over the fluid. And it heats my domestic hot water. So, like showers, your kitchen sink, a dishwasher, stuff like that, all powered by this air-to-water heat pump. If you say this in Europe, people are like, oh, everybody's got one. That's kind of a problem because I was the only one to do this in this entire region. Nobody's ever heard of it. So when you need an answer, nobody has one. So we have to go figure out the answer. And when you need a part, they're all in metric. So I can't just go around the corner to the plumbing store and buy the fitting. I have to order from Germany and wait two weeks for it to get here. So it was it was interesting, and I'm glad that I did it. Um, I will it will pay for itself within a few years of usage uh because of how efficient it is. I mean, my bills are exceptionally low, and it's the real feel is 14 degrees outside right now, um, as we speak, and it's a nice toasty 71 degrees in here, and my bills are very, very minimal. Like I'm paying between 75 and$100 a month for heating, and it's like 2,000 square feet of livable space. Um, so I I think that's like probably one of the bigger ones. And then uh I tried a steel joist, floor joist, uh, that's marketed so that you can uh run utilities through it. It's supposed to make life easier, and it was technically cheaper than going with an engineered wood joist. Uh, I would never use those again as long as they live. For two reasons. One, because they're sharp as razors. And so when you tried to like pull anything like through the holes that are meant for you know utilities to run through, it would like sheath wires, it would like shape and cut stuff. So I wrapped all the openings with pool noodles so that they don't, you know, cut ever cut everything up to pieces. Um, and then two, it's like when you're screwing wood into metal, you're going between two dissimilar materials. And so I started losing my mind like halfway through the project because you got like 10 different drills and drivers and 50 different screws, and every single scenario required a different type of screw, and you're like, oh, it's over there, so I gotta run over here. And it just it got really, really difficult very quickly. So the the less dissimilar materials that I could have, uh, the better. So you get your envelope in, and then the rest I would just do, and that would have saved us a ton of time and headaches.

SPEAKER_03 30:15

I would be remiss if I didn't ask what was the best thing you designed in the house.

SPEAKER_00 30:24

I love my bathroom. Uh I I it it that space means a lot to me in my house. So, like the shower and the bathtub setup, it's a very Japanese influence. I did like a perfectly round like circle soaking tub. Um, and it's got plants flowing out of it, and it's a walk-in shower, and we custom tiled the entire thing. That and and the lighting, I spent a ridiculous amount of time uh studying, studying lighting, which uh Jill back to one of your previous questions. How did this make me a better architect? I think that's like it was one of my weakest subjects, quite frankly. Uh, I just kind of like in a reflected ceiling plan, I'm like, ah, light's here, it looks great, move on. And you didn't think about immersing yourself in the space and like what it means. And so I did I can't even tell you how many hours of research uh in late nights, just like testing different lighting and uh and different color temperatures. And so there is not a light in this house that is not an integrated LED fixture that has a variety of color temperatures and is on a dimmer switch. So I can control the mood and set the tone for any space in this house at any given moment in time. And I think that is like probably one of the biggest wins. And uh, and as Miriam spends more time in the house, she's even acknowledging it. She's like, the more I play with the lighting, the better I like it. I'm like, that's the point. Yes, I love it.

SPEAKER_03 31:55

Amazing.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

So people like the bridge too.

SPEAKER_02 31:58

We decided to pick an industry that's very difficult to change. Breck, you had touched on this that a lot of tradespeople are not interested in working in on a house that's not typical construction, something that they're not familiar with. Versus if we've done a lot of comparing your house to either a car or a smaller piece of technology like a cell phone that updates way more frequently, your house is designed for the long haul. It's designed well and it's relevant now, as relevant as it will be however long your house is gonna last. So, can you talk a little bit about the overall greater picture of home and where you see this company and this product going?

SPEAKER_00 32:41

I I mean I haven't thought of it in so many words, Joe. Uh I like your approach to things. Um it's built to last. And I and I think that's like one of the biggest considerations um that we have through the design and the the software that we're doing is um we could make it even cheaper. We could we could build for a lot cheaper if we were just building junk, which a lot of people are. I mean, there's manufactured housing going crazy right now. It seems to be all the rage. And uh you've heard me say it before, like I feel strongly that like the majority of housing 10 years from now is going to come out of a factory, um, which this home did. Like the majority of it was fabricated off-site, which sped up a timeline. You know, the panelized chunks, the the house, so where all the utilities come from, that was all pre-manufactured off-site and brought to site and erected. And um, and if we're thinking long term, um we could have done it cheaper, but what we do instead is think about the lifetime value of a home. And it's easy for me to position myself to have that conversation because I'm living here right now. But when we work with developers and with municipalities, because that's where this is going and heading quickly, um, when we talk to them about it, it's everybody wants to know what the cost per square foot is. What's cost? What's cost? Because the developer wants to make their money and it's somebody else's problem now, which means that they put in bad cabinets. They put in cheap windows, uh cheap doors, and it's somebody else's problem. Now, not only are those doors and windows and cabinets cheap, but they're gonna fall apart soon. So they're leaking air, they're not keeping the hot air in or the cold air in um very efficiently, and they're gonna break. And now it's up to the homeowner who bought that from a developer to replace that. What we're doing is we're finding efficiencies in the system. And instead of just like making it cheaper so that there's a bigger profit margin, we're passing that on to the ultimate users of the building by investing in better, more quality materials. So better doors and windows, um, better countertops, better cabinetry, things that will last so that there's a lifetime cost benefit and savings that's passed on to the people who use these buildings. Um, we're not just here to make a profit, we're here to actually make better buildings more attainable and make sure that they look good in the process.

SPEAKER_03 35:07

Just I on who would be the right person to pick up the phone today and call home or call three square to say, I want a home product, I want a home design. What who who's the right person today? And it could be more than one person.

SPEAKER_00 35:25

Yeah, well, I mean, the right person today is, I mean, if there is an infill lot that can put a building on it, I mean, that that is the target audience, but it makes the most sense on an economy of scale. So if you're an individual homeowner and you want to build a home next to you as like an investment property, or you want to build a home because you own property and you've had it forever and you want to build there, sure, we'll have that conversation. Absolutely, 100%. But the bigger conversations that we're having right now is we're talking to mayors of cities who are looking at 40, 60, 80 lots, 5,000 lots in Cleveland was a recent conversation. City of Fort Wayne, city of Muncie, Indiana, the city of Detroit, Romulus, Michigan. Like these are all cities that we are talking to. And developers who know what they're doing, who have experience in building homes, who are sick of the old paradigm of doing things, who know that they're not going to turn a profit. Builders who feel bad about building garbage and selling that off, give us a call. Because you understand it at its core. You know the problem, you know where it's going, you know that you're actually not building quality materials anymore, and they're getting more expensive. Those are the people we want to talk to, the people who can see the bigger vision who have 20, 30 lots that have unique conditions spread throughout a neighborhood that all need this infill. And I know we've talked about like infill might be something that's unique to post-industrial regions, more so than other areas. Like, you know, LA doesn't need as much infill housing as like Indiana does uh for some obvious reasons. But if there are lots that are available to be developed at a scale, knowing that each one of these homes is going to be unique to its context, to its location and its characteristics, um, those are the people that we're talking to.

SPEAKER_03 37:18

Wow. Jill, any other final questions or any other um questions or things that you might want to discover about this project, this awesome and incredible project?

SPEAKER_02 37:29

I think I'll start to close things off by just acknowledging the multiple endeavors that this project has taken on as a whole. Um, not only do you try to improve things for the overall housing industry and its end user, you're also considering things like environmental factors and not needing a dumpster on the job site because you're not producing as much waste. So many things that are contributing to an overall greater good and greater picture that potentially a lot of developers or builders aren't necessarily considering. You've taken all of those things on. And not only have you taken them on, you've taken them on in the city of Detroit, where we learned that there were only eight building permits distributed across the past two years. Um, so I think that it was needless to say, this was a difficult project, but you did well. You had a great team backing you between Three Squared and Home. We have a real unique team here that was willing to take on something that I think many other people would not necessarily have been interested in taking on. So I just really want to commend you and the team here, everyone involved in this project. Kudos and hats off to all of us.

SPEAKER_03 38:38

Yes, indeed. Cheers, cheers.

SPEAKER_00 38:41

There's a fine line between being advantageous and being stupid. Uh I think I danced that line a little bit. Um, yeah, I'll I'll give my concluding statement as um thank you, Leslie Horn for the support and for the graciousness that you provided throughout this entire process. I remember like it was yesterday, the day that I came to you and I was like, I'm gonna build a house. And you're like, a container house. And I'm like, nope, I got something else. And uh you looked at me with a side eye, but we had that conversation, and look where we are today, and look who came and saw the house, and look at the phone calls we're getting right now and the conversations we're having. I'm excited for where this goes, but um, it's not it's not every firm that you could work at that uh would allow your your lead architect to uh to work on nights and weekends so that you know during those morning hours you could swing a hammer. Um, so it's just like the support that I got here at Three Squared wouldn't give it up for the world. It's such a unique team. And uh and I can't thank you enough for everything. Uh we wouldn't have this house to be talking about if it wasn't for you and for your leadership in this company.

SPEAKER_03 39:53

Thank you, Brick, and you're welcome.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

And with that, we'll take it to a close. This has been Innovative Real Estate with Three Squared Inc. Uh, if you're interested in knowing more about the Cochrane home, uh, we will be sharing it on social media. Uh, I'm sure you've followed along on some tidbits of that, and it will also be featured on the website. And you can learn more about the process and the products that we used uh for the panelized construction of this, which is a prefabricated product. And we're doing lots of different projects with this, not only with houses, but we're uh we're starting to use this for commercial buildings and larger multi-unit apartments as well. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_01 40:32

Bye, everybody. Thank you. We hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you found it so valuable, you want to connect with us one-on-one, click the link in the description to tell us all about your project so we can help you get started. And to get notified on the next episode here on Innovative Real Estate, go ahead and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes so you never miss a beat. Get out there, put today's advice into action, and we will see you in the next episode.