Nov-2017

98 99 TIDEWATER HOMES with a Bosch appliance package, granite counter- tops throughout, a tankless water heater, a security system with IPad integration, a paver driveway, and a rear lanai, plus a 2- to 10-year homebuyer’s warranty at no additional cost to the buyer.Within each plan, Tidewater also incorporated various structural options in order to accommodate bonus rooms, guest suites, and fifth bedrooms. Brannock says that from time to time, the com- pany will entertain a full custom build, but only after careful consideration. “For these unique situ- ations, it’s almost as much of an interview process for us as it is for them,” he avers. Also, as a small firm–Tidewater only has four employees – it must manage its resources carefully. “We have to assess each build and say does it make sense for us to have all of our stuff in one location and then have one house being built 45 minutes away? We just finished two houses at the beach here in Jackson- ville, and that was an ideal situation for us because there were two houses going up, not just one.” Not overextending itself also helps Tidewater maintain its preferred professional ethos. “One of the things we pride our business model on is the extensive customer service,” says Brannock. “We educate our homebuyers on the process and we help them through it because, at the end of the day, everyone knows that the experience of building a house is very stressful. A lot of people have bad experiences, so we try to put all the bad experiences on our shoulders to where our future homeowners are going to really enjoy this process of picking out their finishes, and seeing their house on a weekly basis with new things happening, and not have the stress associated with that.” Jim McDade, one of Tidewater’s Co-Founders elaborates: “The customer service experience is like going into a high-end, boutique clothing store. We hold a lot of hands and we make sure that our customers are getting a great experi- ence. It’s construction and things happen, but our customers get a lot of one-on-one at- tention. And you’re not going to get that kind of attention from somebody who’s building hundreds of homes a year –we’re building 15 to 20 homes a year. So, we end up develop- ing long-term relationships with our clients. Those relationships are really important to us.” Tidewater offers a “build on your own lot” program, but it will also build homes on spec when appropriate. “We do build spec,” says Brannock. “Right now, in Mandarin, we have three homesites left in that 12-homesite community, and we’re about to start a spec, this week.We started a spec in there in March and it went under contract at the framing stage. So yes, we do build spec.We try not to carry more inventory than two to three specs at any given time, but people love our look, and luckily, we never were in a situation where we built a spec and had to sit on it for We hold a lot of hands and we make sure that our customers are getting a great experience. It’s construction and things happen, but our customers get a lot of one-on-one attention. And you’re not going to get that kind of attention from somebody who’s building hundreds of homes a year. JIMMCDADE CO-FOUNDER OF TIDEWATER