Meet Wendi and Charlie Gechter, husband-and-wife co-owners and Epcon Franchise Builders in Grand Junction, Colorado.

“It’s a big investment. Is it really going to pay off? There was a lot of back-and-forth on our part, of course, because we’ve already done this before. We’ve already been builders. We’ve already been developers. Do we really need to pay somebody to come do that for us? It’s definitely been worth it.”

Host: Charlie and Wendi, thank you so much for sitting down with me this afternoon. I want to hear from both of you about the history of your career and how you got started in home building. And, Wendi, I’d like to start with you because I believe it’s your dad who started BOA Builders.

Wendi Gechter: My dad started BOA Builders way back in the 80’s. He built some homes back then. The market crashed. I don’t know if everybody knows about the market crash, but there was a big market crash in the eighties. He went under and did some other things. Back in 2000, he started it back up and then, in 2014, we took over. I was never actually in the construction industry with him. I mean, I did a lot of stuff with construction just because he was there, but, I did not do anything in construction. My background was actually in IT healthcare. I did IT healthcare for 20 years prior to coming into this role.

Host: And Charlie, what about you? How did you get into home building?

Charlie Gechter: I met Wendi in the early 2000’s. I was working for a local audio video company doing new home installs for low voltage. So I did theater rooms, security systems, that kind of stuff. I was in and out of that for a while. I actually took a career change and went to the local sheriff’s office. I was a sheriff’s deputy for eight years. And during that time, Tom, my father in law, was still building and I helped him out on certain jobs. Then in 2014, when he was getting ready to retire, we had done some flips on the side or for our personal selves. When he decided to retire, we decided it was time to jump ship. So I retired from the sheriff’s office and took over BOA and started at that point.

Host: So you’re about 10 years into taking over the business now. What’s the journey been like during this past decade?

Charlie: It’s been a different one. When we took over in 2014, it was all commercial at that point. After that market crash in the 80’s, he was always scared to get back into home building and so he did a lot of commercial tenant finished type stuff. So when I took over, we were 100% commercial. We took that path from commercial for the first couple of years and then started doing remodels, then got into custom homes and then we started doing development about five years ago. We moved on four or five different developments, and we sell lots to other builders as well as ours.

Host: Charlie, can you tell me how you found Epcon?

Charlie: Being developers already, we actually already had a parcel of land. We were deciding what to do with it as far as what exactly to develop on it. And, truthfully, I’m not sure how it popped up. I think it was actually a Facebook advertisement. So something that you guys did.

Wendi: Good marketing by Epcon.

Charlie: It popped up and we started looking at the opportunity. We’re currently doing a smaller patio home type community, and one of our big issues was privacy in dense neighborhoods. We saw the Epcon plans and that’s actually what drew me to it first was the private side courtyard. I was like, oh, that’ll fit perfect for what we want to do.

Host: Wendi, can you tell me what your experience has been like working with Epcon so far?

Wendi: So far, it’s been great. For what I thought was a smaller organization, you guys have done a great job with just the leadership, the information that has been provided, the follow up, the skills that everybody has to provide us. I think that was one of the reasons why we got involved with Epcon was just a little bit more structure, because we’re growing as well. And so I felt like Epcon kind of brought some of that for us, some of that help on, just everything. Job descriptions, scopes of work, skills, sales, everything like that. So far, it’s been really good.

Host: Can you talk a little bit about your first Epcon project that’s on the horizon? What’s that going to look like? How many homes are you planning to build? What are some of the amenities that you’ll be providing?

Charlie: We have 19 acres, and so we’re a fairly dense community. We’ll have 95 houses. We’re split about 50/50 on that between the P-series and then the new Carriage series, which I understand are fairly new, but we’re actually really looking forward to that. We have a lot of retirees moving from out of town, just like a lot of people are. We’ve seen a lot of them wanted a smaller footprint. And so that’ll help on not only the footprint, but the price point we can offer as well.

Wendi: So as far as amenities, we’re doing a couple pickleball courts. Of course, the clubhouse, that’s kind of standard. But I think one of the things that we’re going try to put in the clubhouse that’s a little bit different, and you might have heard about it from somebody else, is a golf simulator. I think that’s going to be a big one for everybody. We’ll have a dog park in one of our areas and we’ll have trails and that kind of stuff as well.

Host: I want to backtrack a little bit and talk about the transition from commercial over to residential. What are some of the challenges that have come along with that, and maybe some of the ways that you feel Epcon can help in building residential product?

Charlie: Commercial, I don’t know, I’d say it’s a lot of cut and dry. Not that people don’t care on the commercial side, but there’s a lot less involvement with the client. It’s, you know, some offices get built and you’re done. On the residential side, there’s a lot more of the marketing, the pre-sales, the design side of everything. And so that’s a huge thing with Epcon, all of that help, we’ve never done that before. Even in our current houses that we sell, we don’t do a lot of pre-sales, and so I know Epcon is real big on that with the marketing side. A lot of that sales help is what we’re looking for.

Host: What advice would you give to a potential Franchise Builder, even newer than yourselves? I know you’re pretty new to the Epcon network, but thinking back, what advice would you give to someone who’s considering an opportunity like this and why you chose to make that leap?

Wendi: We were at IBS recently, and we met a couple, Jon and Stefanie Goldman. And at that time, they weren’t Franchise Builders yet. So when we talked to them about if they should become part of the Epcon network or what they should do and that type of stuff, I think we had nothing but good stuff to say just because of that structure, just because of what the sales does for everybody, because everybody’s so easygoing and really good to get along with. I even liked the legal process of the contracts. Everybody’s just very easy to work with, even when you’re going through something very stressful like that. So that’s what we told Jon and Stefanie, and now they’re Franchise Builders.

Charlie: I would just add one thing, on the land development side we have done five or six developments ourselves and let’s say we’re decently versed in that. But even that being said, working with Steve Peck, he’s provided all kinds of stuff, templates and just a different point of view. I mean, he’s done, I’m sure, hundreds of deals. So just even on that, dealing with our city, even though we had some approvals, he already saved us a turn lane that we thought we were going to have to put in. That was a $150,000 turn lane we thought we were going to have to do. And with his data that he was able to provide us, we got the city to agree that we don’t have to. That more than doubled our initial investment. So just things like that, even though we’re versed in that. So anybody that’s new that’s not done development before, all those pieces are huge, huge helps.

Host: I want to open up the floor. Any thoughts that you’d like to share about your journey thus far?

Wendi: I think he probably had to convince me more. I had more trepidation over it, so it was a lot of convincing for me but I do feel like it was a good choice. I do think there’s a lot of work to it. Anything has work. Successful stuff takes work. But I’m totally all in.

Charlie: Me personally, I’ve been blown out of the water. You just never know signing up. It’s a big investment. Is it really going to pay off? There’s a lot of back and forth on our part, of course, because we’ve already done this before. We’ve already been builders. We’ve already been developers. Do we really need to pay somebody to come do that for us? It’s definitely been worth it.

To learn more about Wendi and Charlie’s story, watch Commercial Builders Go Residential.