A Conversation With ... Brian Willaby

Company: Richland Homes Inc.

Education: High-school diploma in Tahlequah, Okla., some college experience. “A lot of it’s been hard knocks.”

Tidbit: Willaby is a partner in Craftmaster Properties, developer of subdivisions including Pearson Meadows and Manitoo Heights.

Tell us about Richland Homes and your home-building career.

Richland Homes has been in business for 13 years in Springfield.

I’ve been in the home-building business – or around the home-building business – almost all my life. I’m 47 years old, and I was actually a superintendent for a home-building company out in Tulsa, Okla. My wife and I used to vacation (in the Springfield area), and we loved it up here, so we came up here and started Richland Homes. (Employees) are just me, my wife, Regina, and my sons, Christopher and Michael. We build custom and spec homes, but we do a lot of custom homes. Typically we build 10 to 20 homes a year, pretty much in the Springfield-Greene County area.

Do you do any remodeling?

Some, mostly for homes I’ve built, or for customers’ friends. And we do work on our own houses. We’re not just armchair builders. (If there’s a problem), we’ll come take care of it.

How long have you participated in the Home Builders Association’s Parade of Homes, and how has it helped your business?

We’ve been in the parade consistently for five years. We got into the parade when I (joined) the Home Builders Association. For the first three years, we sold the houses that we had in the parade, and we sold houses off of the parade. Last year, we didn’t sell anything off the parade that I could track. It’s hard to track it. We’re hoping this year to get some sales off the parade. We have two homes in the parade this year, and neither one has sold this year.

How do you assess the new-homes market?

The housing market is sluggish, but it’s not as bad as what it is nationally. You hear about all the negative stuff that goes on in Nevada, in the Las Vegas area, and then in Florida. The problem I have is that … the news media as a whole is saying, ‘Oh, (home sales) are off 40 percent or 50 percent.’ Well, if you (factor in) that they were up 300 percent for the past five years, they’re actually not back down to normal yet.

What trends are hot with your current customers?

More energy-efficient (homes) for the least amount of money. Green building is kind of a new trend, and everybody’s talking about it, but there are different variations to green building. We’re trying to do what we call affordable green. As new technology comes out, we’re trying to put in products that don’t increase the price of the house (and) will actually pay for themselves in the first three to five years. We do cellulose insulation, a recycled product. It’s newspaper that’s been treated, and we put it in the walls and also in the attic. It cuts down on air infiltration and gives a real good R value. We’re also (using) 90-percent furnaces … that … vent steam versus venting heat out into the atmosphere. It’s a sealed unit that uses about 90 percent of the gas.

What goals do you have for Richland Homes?

We’re trying to (serve) the low mid-range market and the high-mid-range. We don’t want to get into the real high-end market. We want to (focus) on affordable homes in the $175,000 to $350,000 or $375,000 range. We’re trying to get to where we build about 30 homes a year, but obviously, the market makes a big difference. And we’re trying to build with the energy-saving factors so people can actually afford the house payments. Let’s say they have a $1,000 house payment. With the energy-efficient homes we’re trying to build, they’re not going to have a $500 utility bill. They might have a $200 utility bill, so it makes it easier on their pocketbook for the life of their house.

Tell us about Craftmaster Properties.

Craftmaster is a development company, (a partnership between) me and Tom Barr of ReMax House of Brokers. We developed Pearson Meadows, Manitoo Heights and Emerald Place, a single street that’s over by Emerald Park. Craftmaster started about four years ago. We saw a need for affordable, big lots. When I started building here, I was building on 70-foot-wide lots. Almost all of our lots are 80 feet wide or wider, which gives us a little more flexibility in the style and shape of our houses.

Interview by Features Editor Maria Hoover. You can e-mail her with suggestions for future installments of this feature at mhoover@sbj.net.[[In-content Ad]]