With the booming real estate market, home builders need to find a way to compete in creative and innovative ways. Bill Goreschak was brought into Arthur Rutenberg Homes as building company president in July and has increased the size of the operation in this area as well as the company’s inventory of lots. Michele Newbern Gillis of Realty-Builder Connection recently sat down with Goreschak to discuss his vision for the company.
Question: Tell me about Arthur Rutenberg Homes
Answer: I am the building company president of this franchise of Arthur Rutenberg Homes. There are two others in the immediate vicinity, Marcus Allen Homes in Ponte Vedra and World Golf Village area and Plantation Homes in Fernandina. Duval, Clay and a good chunk of St. Johns County falls under our territory, which is Royal Coast Builders. Arthur Rutenberg Homes is actually the franchiser with a huge office in Clearwater. I’m in charge of this franchise. Arthur Rutenberg Homes is what we go by, but the franchisee is actually Royal Coast Builders. There are 30 franchises of Arthur Rutenberg Homes, most of which are in Florida. The company has six design centers throughout the state for the buyers where they do, not only typical builder finishes, but also interior designs including window treatments, furnishing and accessories. It is a one-stop shopping for all of our customer’s interior design needs. The one in Palm Coast services Northeast Florida.
Q: What does Arthur Rutenberg Homes build?
A: We are definitely not a production builder. We are a custom builder and I would call it a semi-custom homebuilder. We have over 85 single-family home designs each with up to 10 elevations each. When you do the math, there are a lot of possibilities. Our designs are fully customizable by the buyer. Most people start off with a plan and make a lot of changes. We never build straight out of the book, it’s really a starting point. If by chance there is nothing in the book they want to start with, then we have what we call ‘white sheet’ and start from scratch.
Q: What is Arthur
Rutenberg Homes
doing in Jacksonville?
A: Our primary activity is out in Queen’s Harbour. We have about 18 houses under construction right now. Some of them are on lots that we owned and have sold to buyers and others are from people who actually owned their own lot and gotten us to be their builder. We are also in Mandarin. We have a house we are finishing up on Durbin Creek in Julington Creek Plantation. We are getting ready to start a house on the river in Switzerland. As many builders do, we buy lots from developers and then we re-sell them to buyers with one of our homes. That’s about half of our business. The other half is as a ‘on your lot’ builder. That is when people have their own lot already. Many times because of the caliber of our homes, they are waterfront lots.
Q: Do the franchises all work together?
A: Yes, we have more than 60 furnished Arthur Rutenberg model homes in Florida for buyers from any franchise to visit. Our model homes act as a living catalog of the possibilities of a new home.
Q: What are the price ranges of your homes?
A: The price range for the house only is about $400,000 to $1.5 million. The meat and potatoes are around $800,000. Our houses are normally concrete block construction, but we are working on coming up with a wood frame price list just to appeal to the more price conscious buyer, so we can offer a $300,000 home.
Q: Who are
your salespeople?
A: We have two sales people in the model in Queen’s Harbour. They are Debbie Davis and Teresa Amereihn. They market all of our lots to Realtors and prospective buyers. Arthur Rutenberg Homes started in Clearwater in 1953 so a lot of people know the Rutenberg name. They have been building here for seven years.
Q: What do you do?
A: I’m in charge of all the operations, deciding which subdivisions we will build in, what plans we will build for speculation homes, hiring, firing and the whole process.
Q: What is your
vision for the company?
A: One of the things we want to do is to represent the Arthur Rutenberg brand is the best possible way. We want to build the product and have happy buyers. We want to grow, but not grow at a tremendous pace. We want to do a controlled growth. This year, we are closing about 16 homes. Next year, we are on board for about 30 homes. The difference of what the company was doing is that they weren’t chasing down lots as much. That’s one of things I dealt with where I came from. I had a lot of dealing with developers and finding lots and having places to build.
Q: What have you done to improve the company since you took over?
A: The biggest change is certainly the land position. We’ve increased our inventory of lots and beefed up our staff. We have increased our number of construction managers, purchasing department and throughout the company to better serve our customers. We are also doing more advertising to get the message out there.
Q: Future plans?
A: We now have multiple places to build in our inventory. We have lots in Beauclerc and Mandarin. We are looking to buy in Mandarin and the Northwest quadrant of St. Johns. We are going to put a new speculation home in Reed Island Estates, which is part of St. Johns Landing. We are under contract for 30 lots just north of Palencia that will be out in 2006. The typical lots that we are picking up now are smaller subdivisions with about 10 lots where larger builders wouldn’t be interested in building. I’m looking for land and there are a lot of good opportunities.
Q: What do you like about your new job?
A: When you work in a production background, everyone is a number more or less. This is a little more personal. You get a little more involved in the houses. There is less of a bean counter, number-cruncher type of situation. You are more of a smaller building company and are closer to all the action. I like being able to lead the company, take initiatives, work on process improvement and customer satisfaction.
Q: Why did you get into construction?
A: My dad was a custom homebuilder in Boca Raton and my mom was in real estate. I grew up in real estate and construction and then I went to University of Florida and earned a bachelor’s in building construction. After college, I moved to Jacksonville and worked at The Haskell Company doing design/build commercial construction for about six years. When I left there I went to Seda Construction Company where I was for 10 years - the last four or five as chief operating officer. So, now I am kind of going back to where I come from on the custom side.
Q: Tell me about yourself?
A: I was born in Bridgeport, Conn. My family moved to Boca Raton in 1969. In 1988, after college I moved to Jacksonville to work for the Haskell Company. I have been married to Sheri for 14 years. We have two children David, 7 and Eric, 6. When I’m not working, my favorite thing is boating on either a river or a lake. We just love the sun and water. I also am very involved in sports like coaching T-ball and flag football with my children.