35. Transforming Our Building Company With Michael Bolduc and Vanessa Willett

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Hello and welcome to the Professional Builder Secrets podcast, a podcast by the association of Professional Builders for building company owners, general managers, VPs and emerging leaders. Here we discuss all things running a professional building company from sales, processes, financials, operations and marketing. We have another great episode from the Professional Builder's Secrets podcast. I'm joined today by Michael and Vanessa, co founders and owners with HC Habitation in south of Montreal, Canada. Thanks for being here today. It's great to see some fellow Canadians.

Great to be here.

Thank you so much for having us on.

So let's start off with a little bit about HC amputation. What do you guys specialize in? And tell us a little bit about what you do.

So basically we are very custom, I guess we specialize in very custom homes, very tailored specifically to our clients and on their lot. So it's different from a lot of the builders that are around here. A lot of them are on their own land and kind of like cookie cutter home projects. So that's how I guess we're different from them.

And that's interesting. So they actually come to you with the land essentially packaged, and then you're building a home. Do they come to you for the land as well, or is that just something you guys don't work with?

We don't really work with it anymore. We did when we first started out. We had 22 lots and we sold them all. And then the problem was trying to find lots. And around here it's kind of a. A rare commodity. So we had a few people that did come up to us and ask if we could build on their own land, and it kind of worked out well. So basically we continued from that and saw that it was definitely kind of more profitable or just less. What's the word I'm looking for?

Less.

Headaches.

Headaches, yes.

Well, let's go back down memory lane, shall we? Let's start off with how you guys got started in the industry and what made you choose this path.

Absolutely. So looking around 2008, a friend of mine was actually building his own home for himself. His father had built a home for their family as well. So they kind of had a little bit of experience in residential construction. I was working actually as a pipe fitter, more on the commercial industrial side of construction. And it was always kind of interesting to me to see residential home building. So I had an opportunity to help him build his home. Learned a lot and just absolutely loved the experience. So after that, we decided to build our own family home, and then just a couple of houses after that to build and resell. And it just felt like it wasn't work. I was doing it after work and on weekends and evenings and turning around to, I think, 2011, that's when, you know, I decided, I'm going to do this full time. At that point, I had a business partner that I worked with. So we decided to go off and start building homes and buildings for clients and kind of taking whatever work we could find. We did that together up until about 2018. And, you know, we had a split in the partnership. We had different views of kind of where the business wanted to go and kind of some things that pop up with partnerships. So then Vanessa and I decided, okay, well, let's do this for real. Because most of the good advice that I would always get was kind of from her in the background and her input. I would go to her for a lot of those issues and problems that we'd have. And a lot of times the solution was there. So we figured, let's start building. We can still do this. Let's take this leap. And actually, it was 2018, March 1, that we began construction of our first home for HC habitation.

You pronounce it very differently. Is that a French enunciation as well?

It absolutely is a French enunciation. And the reason for that is because being where we are, it's majority French. So it probably seems like a really weird company name for anybody that would read it in English, but, yes, it makes more sense in French.

That's cool. Yeah, it's very different, but I like it. So tell me a little bit about what it was like starting out. You know, I mean, obviously you're leaving a career, you're starting out. It must have been a little bit daunting not knowing where you're going to land at that point. Take me through what you were thinking through at that point when you were starting out.

It was tough at first, for sure. I mean, I was kind of in a fortunate position where I was actually working for a family business. So my parents were entrepreneurs. They were a company that did fire protection systems, and they'd been established for almost 25 years at that point. They had a relatively big company, almost around 50 employees. So it was A little bit of a challenge to decide, okay, look, that's not the path for me. This is really what I want to do. Fortunately, I was able to save up some money before jumping into it, and I did have that kind of financial backing and support. So we had a much better opportunity than a lot of people that would have probably been in the same shoes. But it was tough. It was tough not knowing what the future held, not having that security, literally. Our son was born in 2010, so it was kind of a lot of things going on at the same time. But I definitely had a lot of support from family, tons of support from Vanessa for the first business that we had begun. But it was a challenge, and I think anybody that's in that same position probably feels a lot of the same things, but we feel like we're a long way since then, but it's not that long ago.

Looking back at some of the experiences you had, obviously you had some amazing family experiences as well. What were some of those classical business owner mistakes that you make that you'll never forget and potentially might have changed your business? When you look back at. And every builder I've met from around the world has had something or the other pop up, obviously, when they're first starting out. But if you go down that path, what comes to mind?

I guess probably winging it a lot. I mean, we definitely winged it. To be completely honest, we had no idea what we were doing. So basically, I would say 99% of what we did was winging it. And luckily, Michael is very into business and reading, and he reads about every sort of possible niche of business and entrepreneurial books and podcasts. So he did have, I would say, a pretty solid background in kind of what, a guidance of what we needed to do. But definitely winging it was probably our motto.

There's faking it to making it, and there's winging it. So I'll take winging it any day of the week.

You know what I mean?

I think. I think that's. We can all agree that's actually a good place to be, and I think it's really refreshing that people can actually say that, because I think we all start from somewhere, right? So I definitely respect the hustle. How did you discover that you had a unique value proposition in such a competitive space? You talked about space being an issue where you are and the fact that you had to find a niche in this area. So did that just come to you organically? Did you stumble on it and, you know, how long did it take you to realize that you actually have a viable craft here that you could take to the market.

Yeah, it honestly did fall into our lap. And I remember listening to, I think it was Gary Vaynerchuk and marketing and stuff. And you know, they talk a lot about niche, find your niche and your niche. And I just kept thinking like, how do I find my niche? I don't get it. Where do you find it? You know, how do you know if it's that? And I guess just with a lot of the repetitive questions that we got from potential clients asking us if we could build on their lots, it literally, like I said, kind of fell onto our lap. And then we realized, oh wait, this is kind of something that we're good at and there's a lot of demand. And it became more and more popular. Like I was saying, with the lack of land available and people just trying to save money too, with the increase in home building, it would be cheaper for them to buy their own lot than buy from a builder with a markup.

Yeah, no, I think that's kind of how we fell into this niche in the market. Whereas a lot of the builders that were established in our area had been around for 20, 25, 30 years, and they had their methods of working, they had good quality, they were well renowned, but they're a little bit stuck in their ways. Where you take this house, this is how it is, and if you want it, buy it. If not, the next person will buy it. So we're a lot more flexible in that. Even from the beginning, when we were selling on our own lots for our clients, we had a lot more customizations, modifications, brand new plans. Anything you want we can kind of figure out. And then it just became more and more of a demand of people wanting to build on their own lots. And you know, we really kind of specialize in that specific niche in this area, which is, you know, it's common all over the world, but over here it's just a little more rare. So, you know, we're able to stand out like that.

What should homeowners that are looking to build on their lot be aware of in this space? You know, what's the common misconception or something that's surprises them when they start working with you?

Well, I think the thing that a lot of people expect is even though we're professional builders and, you know, we're licensed and everything, each builder kind of has their own way of working. Now the thing is, each home is one off. It's on that specific lot. It's on those specific conditions during the course of the build, it's with that particular client. So we're not repeating the home, we're repeating the process to get to that point. So I think that's something that a lot of homeowners need to take into consideration is this is a one off. This is the only house like this in the world. Even if we've maybe built something pretty similar or kind of the same, or you've built with another builder. So that's something that a lot of people don't quite consider. And something else that I find is very important is really open lines of communication. And if you have a question, ask it. There's no such thing as a dumb question. I'd rather be asked a hundred questions, you know, in a week about your build to clarify things than to do something execute the work that we think is great because that's the way we always do it and most of our clients have been satisfied with it. Then it's too late. So that's too.

Right.

So absolutely. So it's just trying to get everybody on the same page. There's so many elements that go into building a home that that's on us as well. And with some of the communication and the strategy we've been trying to put into place is to be more clear upfront and try to get everything we can detailed. But there's just thousands and thousands of elements in a home that, you know, if something's unclear, ask your builder the question.

It sounds like it's a really collaborative process, which could be also exciting if you have the right home builder as well. Right. And homeowners. So let's go down transformation a little bit. So obviously you're not winging anymore. Things have changed. How did you end up transforming your business and what does it look like today?

Good question. I kind of touched base on that, I guess a little bit before about finding our niche. Basically, we transformed it to kind of the way that we wanted it to be and we just really focused on the demand that was there. It's just figured itself out, really. I feel like you don't know until it smacks you right in the face and you're like, oh, that's what I've been looking for. Okay.

So I mean, to add to that also, we kind of didn't really touch on it, but we were so used to purchasing lots and selling them to clients that that's how we made our income. So all of a sudden we kind of complete that project and we have no prospects. To purchase land and just what's available is way too expensive. Or if we want to grow the business now, it's not buying 22 lots, it's buying 44. And then, you know, it's putting 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, $10 million down. And we're a small business, we're a young company, and it was just major risk that we could put ourselves in. So, you know, that transformation, we didn't really have a lot of choice to. To move to that. So it was either that or just don't build. So we kind of adapted, and we were really able to put in a lot of the marketing strategies and a lot of the knowledge that were kind of put forth through the APB portal for us. You know, we were members of the education portion before being private, mentoring and just trying to put all those things into work. Little things at a time. You know, not absolutely everything, but just some of those things and the sequences of things and getting the overall picture really helped us with the transformation to what we're doing.

Tell us a little bit about, you know, the association of Professional Builders. How do you hear about them and what did the membership and then eventually the coaching, really, how did it change and transform the business?

Well, it's funny, actually, now that I recall, I heard about them listening to the Builder Trend podcast. So there was another builder talking about, I believe they were based in Saskatchewan. So I just kind of typed it into the computer, typed up my email address, tried to get as much free information as I could for a while because I'm kind of cheap like that. So I tried to maximize as much value as I could, and I saw that, yeah, look, there is value here. So let's sign up, let's try it out. And then we just really went through everything really quickly. And that's when, you know, we set up a meeting with Clint, our coach, to kind of check out the next steps and see if it could be a viable option for us.

But, yeah, we actually had Clint on our episode actually, a while back. I think he was coming in from Kelowna, and he talked us through the coaching process as well. So tell me a little bit about that. So was it the systems? Was it the coaching? Was it a combination of having that support that allowed you to systemize the process a little bit more? You know, how did that sort of learnings, like, what was some of the key learnings from the coaching?

Well, I think one of the important things was definitely to have a clear picture of what's going on. Going back to Us talking about winging it. Well, yeah, you know, that's the opposite of having a clear picture and a detailed. Go through your workbook, set up your targets, see where you're at, kind of count and see where you're going, how many leads are coming in, what's the projections looking like? There's such a long lead time in home building that if it's kind of drying out right now, well, it might not affect you right now, but in four or five, six months, it definitely will. So just kind of fine tuning those little details and having somebody holding us accountable and a secondary voice I think really, really helps that that kind of outside opinion. Neither of us have ever worked in a home building company before, so everything's new, so to have that input definitely helps.

It's nice to have also a non personal voice to kind of give us reason because we have so much feeling that goes into what we do. Sometimes it's. We can't distinguish if it's passion or anger or any sort of emotion with logic. So with that it really, it's a good sense of direction and it's nice to hear that kind of second voice come in.

Yeah, it eliminates the bias that comes in with, you know, with, especially with multiple, you know, co owners as well. Sometimes you have a bias based on where you're coming at. But having that third party that's not really, is attached, but not really attached as well can give you that sort of perspective that you're looking for from a different viewpoint. Right. So I think it's a good way of looking at it. Well, let's start off with are you still having fun? Are you loving running a building company today? What's the one thing that you're not a fan of? I remember when I was in Canada, love the work I did. Hated the one hour drive to get into the office. What do you love and what do you. Not so much, you know, are into right now as far as running a building company?

Yes, I still do love it. I still have that kind of. I think I still have that same passion that I did when I was first helping my friend build his home as a business. Yes, there are days that are tougher than others, but I just love being able to go out on site and seeing the progress. It's framing, now it's drywall. Hey, we've got paint. We're meeting up with the clients. You're getting your keys now you can have your home. It's really cool to see that at the end of the day, we're building homes. We're pretty fortunate to be able to do that. Literally, people will have their entire lives in something that we've built. So certain days are a little bit tougher. Material delays, trade partners, not showing up, payments, not arriving on time. I think that's the same kind of with any business. But if you're selling chips or meat, I don't know, you're not building a house. It's permanent.

Yeah. It doesn't get more personal than a home.

And I'm sure it's a bit of a proud moment, too, when you're driving by and you're looking at a home and going, we built that. I think that's a pretty cool sort of stamp and brag tag that you can actually say to people, right?

Yeah, for sure.

I need you to tell my kids that because they're fed up of me seeing it whenever we drive by somewhere.

And I'm pointing it out, you're the dad that goes. You see that one on that end of the street? That was us. Yeah. Okay.

Am that meme.

All right. So what does the building company look like today as far as staff? You know, how many people do you have? I'm sure it's not just the two of you, but how big is the team right now?

We're only four. We were five. One fell out of the boat. Fell out of the boat.

A good way of putting it.

Yeah.

Yeah, we kicked them out of the boat. I don't know right now, honestly, what the company looks like. I'm going to be honest, it looks like a shit show. And only because I feel like it's like we're walking into open heart surgery midway. We're trying to get everything into place. So I feel like it's very. It's like an organized chaos. Right. We know where we're going, we know what we're trying to do. It's just kind of crazy right now, but it is coming along. So I'll say that it's messy, but I feel like we see, like the rainbow at the end. You know, the storm is clearing out and we're. We're there.

Yeah. So we're definitely in the process. We want to hire another employee, maybe even more after. So people who join the team, we run really lean, especially compared to most other comparables that we see with apb. Now, whether that's a good thing or not, that's a completely different story. So we do know we need to bring on some team members just because of the volume of work that we're doing right now, you know, we're. We're running around almost $2 million in revenue per employee. That's Canadian dollars, obviously. So a little bit different if there's US Listeners, but it's a little bit much. So I think we have to get some more people on the team and try to help us out here.

It's a really refreshing answer, too. I've asked this question, and typically people like to give me the scripted version of what's going on. So I really appreciate the candor as well. Vanessa, where things are. Yeah, it's an original answer, but it also tells you that you could still be growing and still trying to figure things out as well. So I think that's really important for our listener there. And it's also interesting to note that you talked about the fact that you want to bring more people. The question I had for that is, do we have a skill shortage supply of workers in your area, like most of the other parts of the world, or is it just the fact that the industry isn't bringing more people into this trade? Where do you think the problem is?

I think it's a little bit of both. I mean, a lot of the people that are drawn to kind of the construction industry, um, they were pushed away from it for the last 25, 30 years. You know, college was the best path for absolutely everyone. And it's great to get a higher education, but at the end of the day, it's not for everyone. I myself, I have a high school education. That's the max I topped out at. I have a lot of friends that went to college, graduated, degrees, everything, but they're not doing anything that they couldn't have done in a different manner. So I think an emphasis needs to be put back on to people that do want to work, do want to get in the trades. It could be a great job, a great living. You can enjoy yourselves. You can get outside when it's nice. Maybe not so much in the winters over here. That's a little bit of a tougher situation. But you can see something. There's. There's something at the end of the day, something tangible.

It's necessary.

Yeah. And it's a noble craft that perhaps different people need to be having this conversation. You know, Andy, our coach at APB had recently said it needs to be a dinner table conversation to start with. You know, I mean, we need to get our kids and future generations to fall in love with the trait again and I think alleviate some of those stigmas, stigmas that came with It. Right. So I think you've got to bring a really good point here. I think it's a conversation and hopefully there's more and more people and more and more conversations like this that can be taken to the world so that people can look at it from a different angle. As you've grown the business, you talked a little bit about recruiting being one of your focuses and trying to rearrange things as well. What do you think is the next few years as far as focus is concerned? What else are you focusing on to help improve the business?

I mean, right now, one of the major reasons why we joined up with APB was definitely working on our margins. That's something that we know we were way behind where we needed to be for industry standards and it's just not a safe way to grow. We kind of hit, pardon the Canadian pun, but a little bit of hockey stick growth from the beginning. We've only been in business for four years and all of a sudden we had all this work built up and we were doing all kinds of stuff. But at the end of the day, not hard to sell a house if you're not really making the margin that you should. So that's really a focus that we've been doing and it's a process. Like we said, it's a long lead time to be able to get those higher margin homes and to respect the margin for the value that a builder can offer and the service that we offer during and after the build.

Yeah. Clint would say, or does still say less is more. Don't let your ego get in the way of you see those big number sales, but do you make any money at the end? So we are trying to focus on doing less but making more, if that makes sense.

Yeah. Clint's got to reel me in a little bit because I'll get out of hand and not make the best decisions just to try to get sales because I guess I always have that little voice in the back of my head saying, hey, you might not get another sale and business is done, you're over, you're.

It's the personal imax of all the emotions. Right. The fear. And then especially with what's going on in the world, everyone sort of takes that inwards as well. So it's a real thing. Fear is a real thing. Right. And so I can appreciate where you're coming from there too. What do you think builders struggle with in the industry today? If you have to look at your journey and it might have even been a shorter journey, but you still Encounter some commonalities with what other builders face. What do you think are some of those common struggles that everyone should be aware of? And why is the coaching so important?

I guess just the trades not showing up, suppliers scheduling, random delays, just people being reliable. That's a huge one. It's mostly, I would say, within the last two years, obviously, with this pandemic stuff, and people have been using it as a crutch and being a little bit lazy on things that they used to do and don't do anymore. And they still kind of try to blame the delays or the suppliers. I don't know.

Yeah, no, I mean, it is what it is, right? It's that reliability. It's the consistencies that we've seen in the past are kind of going away as far as everything. It's, hey, you're scheduled to show up on this day. You didn't. What happened? Oh, well, I forgot about it. Like, you know, there's more of that, oh, you forgot to call me or whatever. You know, it's kind of passing the buck. Try to take that responsibility. And, you know, we have to be responsible for our builds. We're the ones that are in charge, so we have to do a better job on our end of trying to kind of make the pathways clear for everybody. But it feels like sometimes we're the only ones kind of trying to push in that direction, whereas everybody else just lets it fall into place. So I think that's. That's a struggle that probably a lot of builders are facing right now. And then kind of like we said before, skilled labor, that's going to be an issue. And I think. I don't know how it is in other markets of the world, but here I can see in the next five or six years, it's going to be extremely difficult unless some major things are done.

What advice do you have for builders, either getting into this industry or, you know, fellow builders like yourself? Is there any advice from the experience that you've had? Obviously, that would be really something that they should consider as well.

There's always going to be ups and downs. You know, when it's up, don't get too up because it's going to come down. But when it's down, don't get too down because it's going to come up. If you can always just kind of focus on the goals that you have, it makes those ups and downs smooth and you try to stay a little bit more in the middle in between. That's something that, you know, I'm trying to learn to deal with as well, because I'll let things affect me maybe a little bit more than they should. And it's a challenge. I think every business, it's going to be the same. You know, my parents, it was the same when they had their business, so I saw it kind of as a kid too, and, you know, just try to stay a little bit even keel. And as far as home building is concerned, I would say choose your clients wisely at first. You're going to take whoever you can get whenever just to be able to get the job. But something that we've learned over time is one bad client can feel like the work of 10 or 15 good clients. And it's tough. You don't always know until it's too late. But if you have that gut feeling, go with your gut feeling. That's what I would suggest.

It sounds like you're saying, what you're saying is find the constant within, the ups and downs as well. It's like ride the wave and try to stay constant wherever you go. That's what I'm getting from that answer too. Right. So what do you think the industry is evolving to? You know, obviously you've talked a little bit about some of the challenges, but. And the more I talk to builders like yourself and, you know, folks from around the world, it sounds like the industry is really gearing up for complete change. You know, everyone's committed to excellence. Everyone seems to have this passion. And I think this is one thing that I really admire about the association of Professional Builders is they're really driven by this cause. But where do you feel the industry is evolving to?

I guess it's very personal. I feel like the clients really want to have full transparency and see, you know, with social media and all those things, they want to see everything about the builder, every aspect. And also just if you go with how much online, you know, you can go shopping online for anything. One click and buy. I feel like maybe eventually home buying would be leading towards that. You know, if you can fully customize something online and just literally click, add to basket and buy now and then magically your house appears. I feel like everything's moving so fast that people just want the quicker way and they also just are trying to buy time, I guess.

Do you feel like there's a lot of shortcuts sometimes that come with that as well? Do you feel like people expect shortcuts or how does that look like? I'm just curious if the consumers sometimes go, oh, yeah, that's okay. Do they overlook some of the things that take time. Or do you feel like they want the quality, but they want it really quickly?

I think they want the quality and they want it really quickly. You know, it's just sometimes that comes back to communicating with the client in advance and letting everybody know what the expectations are and what the timeframes are and being as upfront and communicative as possible because they might have an image in their head for what they want with the timeline that they want. But those two things don't coordinate. So, you know, we can do it really well. It's going to take the time it's going to take, but if you want it done really fast, it's not going to be likely the same quality you're looking for. It's going to be way more expensive because you have to put more people there, more resources. So that's kind of the challenge of finding the middle ground with those.

What does success look like to you both today? Obviously, having more team members was one thing I got from Vanessa to answer. But what does success look like today for your business moving forward?

Good question.

I think it's kind of to be able to take a step back where the company is still going to function and thrive. I don't want to be basically key men in the company and, you know, everything needs to go through us and if not, we're the bottleneck. I'd like it to be able to that we could spread that out throughout the team, have confidence in them, let them grow with different challenges and help grow the business as we are and kind of be able to see the top view of everything and see how we can guide the business to the future for our clients and our team members and our trade partners and get out of the necessary day to day where if you don't do this well, nothing moves forward and just kind of have a general overview and really manage the business itself instead of working in the business.

What does the future of your business look like five, ten years from now? What's the future state of play for you long term?

I mean, basically we'd love to expand geographically. I don't know how big. Depends what Mike wants to do. Let's take over the world, but definitely grow a little bit more geographically. One of our big goals is to donate a million dollars to the Montreal Children's Hospital. So we thought about that for a while and you know, when do you have a million dollars in your bank account and you're going to take and give? So we decided to do it $1,000 at a time. So every home that we do build, we donate $1,000 to the Montreal Children's Foundation. So this way it's kind of more of an obtainable goal. And you don't really notice that $1 million chunk that just came out of your bank account. Definitely, you know, giving back to our community. There's hockey programs here that we care a lot about, so we definitely want to help those grow as well. What about your future?

Yeah, I mean, I think we're on the same page at one point. Yeah, sure. Hey, I'll be completely honest. We want to make a ton of money. That's great. You know, I think everybody that's in business, you know, that's not the primary goal. It's a goal because there's a lot of challenges, a lot of stress and a lot of work that needs to be put in. But I don't think I need a crazy lifestyle or anything like that. So, yeah, if we can, that would be a goal that we can help people that maybe aren't in the same position or haven't had the same luck or the same chances that we have and kind of pay it forward a bit. So that would be definitely the long term goal, is to be able to hit that million dollar donation mark. That'll take some time, but, you know, slowly we'll, we'll chip away at that and help out some, some people on the way and have fun building homes and getting families together to enjoy those experiences.

That's such a noble cause. And I've never actually heard a concept of a thousand donations of a thousand dollars, so that's kind of cool. I think you're going to need a bigger boat, though. I think you're going to need a bigger boat with a lot more people.

Yeah.

Well, listen, I really appreciate the candor, the honesty, and the time. You're actually our first Canadian home builders on our podcast. So this is a really proud moment for me as well. We had a fellow Canadian, obviously Clint, come on the podcast a few seasons back and episodes back. But it's really cool to hear it from someone you know in Canada that's doing the building as well. So really happy and excited about that. My last question for both of you. If you look back and you had to go back in time, both of you, what advice would you give a younger version of yourself in business, looking back, Start now.

Don't push it off, just start. It's not going to be perfect. You're going to have challenges. There's going to Be struggles. Even if you're the smartest person in the world and you take over a business that's been around for a hundred years, there's going to be challenges. So what's the difference? Start and put in the work. It's not going to happen if you don't work for it. Nothing's going to happen. So start and work, basically.

I like that. I like that. Vanessa, why is the children's hospital such an important cause for you?

It started off. I mean, now it's more personal. It started off just as something that we kind of felt necessary. I just feel like there's so many children that don't get to be kids because they're so sick and they're stuck in the hospital. Anytime we had gone there with our kids, or even us, it was great. And they're always looking for donations and they're kind of always giving kids little gifts and stuff like that, little surprise boxes whenever they go into the ER or in the hospital. We committed to that. And then actually our son got diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in the summer, in June last summer. So then it was an even more personal cause for that. Yeah, yeah.

It's just great. I mean, sorry. I remember going there when I was a kid, and it was just as one time I was actually hospitalized for a few days, and it kind of got the wheels spinning because there was another kid that was in my room and he was there for months. It's just unfortunate that kids can be in that position because they haven't had the chance in their life to make poor decisions. Where you see people that are older, maybe in the hospital or they haven't had those choices yet. So if it's. If it's a little minimal thing that we can do to help out a little bit, they do great work.

Yeah, it's a great cause. And maybe even the homes you build, the homeowners would like to make their own donations as well to help with the cause, because I think it's a really worthy cause. Look, it's been great. I think I could talk to you guys about Canada quite a bit. You guys are actually making me homesick. But I just wanted to thank you both for your time today and really appreciate the insights and candor as well.

Awesome. It was really, really nice to speak with you.

Yeah.

Thank you so much. It's very early for you over there, so I hope you have a fantastic rest of your day and it rolls out really well for you.

Cheers.

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