Jeffery Homes was founded by Scott’s parents, Wayne and Muriel, back in 1964 and maintains the same commitment to quality, value, and service to this day. Coming to Ontario from Nova Scotia at the age of 19, Scott’s father worked at General Motors in Oshawa as a millwright. With help from his older brother, he started out making a few homes—1,050 square foot bungalows—and eventually left GM to pursue his dream, leaving his pension and benefits behind. The decision was not an easy one for the Jeffery family, but it was one that had to be made.

“To go out on your own, you’ve got to have a lot of confidence that you’re going to make it work,” says owner Scott Jeffery. “It was a big decision on his part, and he made it work.”

After all these years, Jeffery Homes remains a proud, family-owned builder. Along with his sons Eric, 31, and Lucas, 29, Scott has assembled a team of industry pros.

Carrying on the commitment to quality set in place by his father, Scott works with trusted subcontractors and suppliers. Some have been working alongside Jeffery Homes since the 1980s. Others, including framers, are themselves in their second generation, with sons taking over from their fathers.

To work for award-winning Jeffery Homes, construction trades must not only be experienced, but respectful to each other and to the buyers who visit the site of their dream home as it’s being built. Standards for carpenters, bricklayers, electricians, and other trades are high because that’s what the company and its customers expect. “I’ve worked hard to build a team, and once you get the person that fits how we want to do business, you keep them,” says Scott. “At Jeffery Homes, we build each home to the same standards we would want in our own home.” Quality and attention to detail start long before shovels are in the ground.

Taking a bespoke approach to projects, Scott and the team look for a few choice locations that are unique and highly desirable. Preferring quality over quantity, Jeffery Homes creates between 50 and 100 residences annually. Earning new and repeat business alike, the company frequently has clients who prefer to hold on for a Jeffery Home instead of going with other properties.

Many of the company’s developments are so sought-after that they sell out quickly, such as the luxury townhomes of West Scugog Village in Port Perry, and Orchard East and Orchard West in Bowmanville.

Both Orchard East and Orchard West feature detached homes on premium 36 by 120 foot lots in Orchard East, and 40 by 120 foot lots in Orchard West. Jeffery’s completed projects include 51 homes at Courtice Woods in Courtice, Ontario; Brookhill in Bowmanville West; and Kedron Park, in Oshawa.

Continuing its tradition of creating entire communities of high-quality homes, the company’s latest projects include the 1919 Estates of Bobcaygeon—featuring modern, farmhouse-style estate homes on large lots of one to two acres—and VIEWS, in North Oshawa. Located in a growing area, VIEWS is situated close to schools, shopping, entertainment venues, and other key amenities, and the company is in the process of building 700 homes for the community.

From meticulous design/build services to planning, budgeting, and construction, Jeffery Homes handles all aspects of the building process under one roof. Refining its processes over the years, the company is accountable and efficient, ensuring everything goes as planned.

With its industry-wide reputation for excellence, a surprising proportion of Jeffery Homes’ sales are to repeat and ‘move up’ buyers who are now building their dream homes. “We’ve carved out a reputation in Durham Region as a premium, better-than-the-rest builder, not so much geared toward first-time buyers, although we’ve done some townhomes in the past,” says Scott.

While he respects most big companies, he feels that some are merchandisers more than builders. “They could have chosen to manufacture pants or something else, and they’re very good and smart at business, but technically, they don’t know anything about building a house,” he says. “They hire people who have the technical knowledge to build the house. So, are they really builders, or are they merchandisers?”

In contrast, the Jeffery Homes team is ahead of the curve in terms of client needs in this ever-evolving housing market. Committed to an outstanding level of workmanship and finishes, the company is also a leader in environmental initiatives, including Smart technology and Energy Star® building practices.

While many of us are familiar with the distinctive Energy Star blue logo on appliances, not everyone is aware that the independent rating system also applies to houses. According to Jeffery Homes, “It comprises a number of prescribed practices of home building whereby the house often surpasses minimum building code requirements by 25 percent or more. The house is tested at completion, and the system is simply ‘pass or fail.’”

Not only is Jeffery Homes an Energy Award Winner for 2021 and 2022, but it’s one of the first in Canada to build an Energy Star home. It was Scott’s father who set in place the parameters that made the transition to Energy Star so much more efficient.

“The way we were framing and putting houses together was on par with the Energy Star specs of that time,” Scott explains. “Once you start on that path, you can’t go backward. We’re building at that Energy Star level, Version 5.0, right now. We’ve continued to evolve with it and build our houses to that specification. It’s been ingrained in our company for a long time, and that’s the way we do it.”

The company is building several model homes at the moment, one of them through the Net Zero Ready program. According to the Canadian Home Builders’ Association (CHBA), Net Zero Homes are up to 80 percent more energy-efficient than conventional new homes and produce as much clean energy as they consume. Superbly well-constructed, Net Zero Homes are known for their high-performance windows, extra insulation, advanced lighting and mechanical systems, and more.

Built to the same efficiency standards as Net Zero Homes, ‘Net Zero Ready’ Homes already have everything in place to accept renewable energy systems such as solar panels, but they’re not yet installed.

“Think of a Net Zero Ready Home as wired for its future renewable energy system, so that when the homeowners are able to invest in installing solar panels, it’s ready to go,” says the CHBA. “This is called ‘PV Ready.’”

Before working on the model Net Zero Ready home, Scott created one for his son and another for his sister, completely off the grid with solar energy and a backup generator.

With the future of the family-owned company in very good hands, Scott Jeffery is pondering stepping back from the company in the coming years, entrusting it to his sons and the excellent team in place.

“Whether you ever truly get away from it…” he ponders. “Well, I don’t think I ever will, but I’d like to have the flexibility that if you called me to go golfing, I could,” he laughs. “I’m not in the daily grind, as I put it. So that’s my goal in the next few years, but I don’t think I’ll ever disappear. I enjoy the interaction with the trades and working with my boys, and being here as a mentor,” he says. “Pick up the phone and call me. I might be in Florida or up at the cottage, but I’ll always be accessible to have someone to lean on.”

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The company consistently ensures quality assurance and homeowner satisfaction by collaborating with skilled, certified tradespeople and competent industry partners. The team also employs effective software solutions to offer rental property management services to landlords, whether with a single property or a portfolio of properties.

Huron Creek’s expertise also extends to the development of rental income units and condos for sale, as well as project management services for private clients wishing to build their ideal homes. The company maintains longstanding ties with a number of regional and national organizations and programs including the WRHBA, OHBA, Tarion, and Energy Star.

“I started with my partner Peter Catana almost 25 years ago now, when he was building around 40 to 50 homes a year at EastForest Homes Ltd.,” says Vice President Rick Martins. “At that time, during our best year we built 923 homes. When you’re growing, you only do that one way—by learning and trying to get better and surrounding yourself with good people.”

Together with Catana, Martins started building a family business, and while it continued to grow quite a bit and developed its own policies, procedures, and standards, it wasn’t a company beholden to shareholders, he says. There was the owner, and then there were the people in charge of doing what they were doing. This allowed for a lot of flexibility in learning, innovating, and continually coming up with new ideas.

“Peter’s vision was always one of, how can I provide something that I wanted when I came to this country?” Martins says. “My parents, for instance, were first-generation. They wanted the Canadian dream: a home, education for their kids, and a better life.”

Together with Peter at EastForest, the team built close to 16,000 units together, with the majority of them being products for first-time homebuyers, dwellings that have changed drastically over the years. “When I started with Peter, the first-time home product was a townhome, and at that time a townhome was $99,000 and a single [detached] was about $139,000,” Martins shares. “Today, a townhome is $800,000 and a single is a million.”

While townhomes weren’t considered viable products back then, over time they became both desirable and affordable, particularly for first-time buyers searching in the $300,000 to $350,000 range. For those having a hard time with that price, Huron Creek came up with a new product called the Quad—a semi-detached house with a finished basement, with a unit in the upper storeys and a separate unit in the basement—essentially four units housed inside what traditionally would be only two semis.

“When we started that, I think the first ones we sold were $90,000 for the basement units. Then when the Quad started to get into that $350,000 mark, we had to reinvent the wheel again, and we started building stack townhomes,” Martins explains. “Unfortunately, now, as much as we reinvent the wheel, land cost is so expensive that a starter dwelling—not a single-family home, but an apartment-style dwelling with its own entryway—is over $500,000.”

Throughout the 25 years they’ve been together, this kind of reinvention has been key, says Martins. For this company, getting better means that the company grows and evolves alongside the community, with the homeowners ultimately receiving a better product in a better neighbourhood.

To be sure, doing better is the name of the game. “We are always looking at energy efficiency as well; environmentally, how can we do things differently, better, smarter, with less material and a better product? It was always ingrained in us; it was innate,” says Martins. Reinvention has also meant taking a closer look at accessibility and age-friendly living, greater efficiency from an affordability standpoint, and helping to lower monthly bills for occupants.

“When you’re working with people who are like-minded, such as the staff here and we as owners, we’ve always been about, ‘how can we be better and do better?’ If you can achieve that, everybody wins. We’ve gotten better over the years, because when you’re building something, you always learn,” he says.

Martins is particularly proud of Westwood Village’s second phase in Cambridge, Ontario, which is going Net Zero Ready with the goal of all singles—about 65—to be fully Net Zero. The company is also building 144 Net Zero stack townhomes which will be affordable units through a CMHC program in the City of Kitchener. These homes will contain a dual-fuel system with tankless systems for gas and heat pumps in the units handling the air conditioning. Depending on the price of electricity or gas, a mechanism will change out to use the most affordable heat source.

“We’re always looking at doing something different,” Martins says. “We’re probably the first builder in southwestern Ontario, if not in Ontario, to adopt the AeroBarrier, a sealant product that we apply just after we’re done drywall in our homes that gets into all those little cracks and crevices and takes airtightness to under one, which is extremely tight.”

Another example is that, where Huron Creek used to use HRVs (heat recovery ventilation) because they were more common, the team now uses ERVs (energy recovery ventilation), as they’ve come to understand over the years that ERVs are much better in the sense that they will also condition the air. And while customers appreciate these details, Martins adds, at the end of the day, buyers today are most concerned about affordability.

“We’re at a crucial turning point,” he emphasizes. “Housing [costs are] probably at their peak due to taxation that we have and due to the land supply shortages. Homelessness is at an all-time high, housing affordability is out of reach, and then inflation is where it is. Our leaders need to say, ‘enough is enough.’ They also need to curtail our banks, because they’re making money hand over fist,” Martins says. “One simple fix is removing HST on new housing, and I understand the HST is a tax and it’s revenue that comes into the government, but they can easily remove HST on new housing and replace it with a flat tax across all housing.”

Short of the $24,000 that the provincial government gives in Ontario, there is no other rebate, he says, which means when Huron Creek builds a new home, it’s 12 percent more expensive. “Every time I build a new home, or someone else builds a new home, you’re technically inflating the price of housing, and like I said, there are simple solutions.”

Until these solutions take hold, however, availability and affordability will remain out of reach for many, particularly younger people who will end up living at home or making other, less desirable arrangements for their futures.

“Basically they’re going to have to cohabitate,” Martins says. “But I also say that community has to shift too; when my parents came over [to Canada], we lived with my aunt and uncle in their home and they had six kids and we made do. We’ve been a society of consumption, and truthfully, we have to take a look at some of those aspects as well.”

Other challenges facing the industry include labour shortages, particularly in the skilled trades, and the team at Huron Creek believes it’s important to encourage people of all ages and backgrounds to look into this rewarding career—whether young people still in school or those looking to make a career change. Martins himself went through university to be a teacher, and now runs a successful construction company. It’s that ability to pivot—a valuable skill he learned from his father—that has led to his ongoing success.

“You have to be able to contribute,” he says. “Young people were sold a different bill of goods, being told to go to university, and while it was a great experience for me, it cost me $40,000.”

Conversely, the construction industry—while facing its share of challenges—is one that Martins has succeeded in thanks to taking advantage of opportunities and working hard. There are still concerns to be addressed, however.

“Our systems are really broken, and they need to be fixed,” he says. “I’m okay with unions, and we actually use union trades and union companies, but I’m an open shop, and I really believe in the bidding system. People should be given an opportunity, and it has to be open and fair.” Shortages will continue to keep housing unreachable, he adds, and some union restrictions could make the issue worse as strikes are limiting who can and cannot bid work.

In the meantime, Huron Creek will continue to grow, learn, and find better ways to achieve the best products for its clients and provide the best working environment for its employees and its contractors.

“What sets us apart is our staff, our trades, and the family atmosphere,” Martins says. “Our company is all about family.”

As an example, anyone who gets married at the company receives a $500 cash bonus, while $500 is given for the birth or adoption of a child. Any employee with the company for two years or longer is eligible to receive a minimum $30,000 discount off the purchase of a Huron Creek home. “We were given a lot of opportunities, and while we worked for those opportunities, we were able to get ahead. And now we can give back,” says Martins.

“We’re always learning and always trying to be better. As long as you do that, you end up, I think, at the right place.”

The post Affordable, Liveable Homes, From One Family to Another<p class="company">Huron Creek Developments</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Certainly, half a century is a milestone to be celebrated in any industry, but for Cardel Homes, it is a chance to acknowledge how far it has come and the people who got it there—as well as an opportunity to position the company for another 50 years of success.

From humble beginnings
Cardel Homes came to be in a very unusual way. In 1973, while schoolteachers Del and Caryl Ockey were using their summer off from teaching to build their own home in Calgary, Alberta, they caught the attention of others in the community who were interested in having a home of the same calibre built for them.

The couple put their heads together, their efforts together, and the first three letters of their names together and the rest, as they say, is history. Cardel Homes became a family-owned custom homebuilder in the Calgary market.

From a handful of custom homes to start to more than 20,000 homes built in over 150 communities spanning four regions in two countries, Cardel Homes remains a family-owned company today, though its scope and reach has significantly grown.

In 1996, Cardel Homes ventured beyond the Alberta border to establish a presence in Ontario and in 2001 it traversed international borders to expand into Florida, and four years later into Colorado. Each of these expansions was borne out of the strong relationships the company has built throughout the years with its partners who asked for support in their own expansion activities.

According to Chief Operating Officer (COO) Greg Graham, “We were looking for long-term growth opportunities, stability within a market so that we can stay there and be there long-term. Every time we look at an opportunity, if we don’t see long-term duration, if we don’t see land position and lot position, we won’t endeavour to go there just to do one project.”

A winning philosophy
Despite the company’s impressive growth, now under the leadership of Ryan Ockey, Caryl and Del’s son who was sweeping floors and picking up nails at a young age, the roots of the company and the driving philosophy remain the same 50 years later.

“The philosophy, it’s about family, faith, and community,” says Graham. “The philosophy is filtered down through the organization where leadership treats staff as family and we listen to them, we engage with them, we enable them and empower them to make decisions and really try to support them in everything we do.”

For Graham and the leadership team at Cardel Homes, the goal is simple: “Do the right thing for our customers, the right thing for our community, and maintain that family attitude and hands-on approach in everything we do.”

Cardel Homes’ projects are built by their family for yours. From single-family homes to multifamily projects, which the firm added to its repertoire in 2002, Cardel Homes continues to set new benchmarks with its exquisite designs, thoughtful layouts, and calculated elevations.

“We believe our homes are built for real life, meaning we look at how people will use their homes, how they will furnish them and do the layout, the natural light, the traffic flow; design is certainly a big element,” says Graham of the care that is taken by the architectural team to produce quality homes that make sense.

The company’s “production mind-frame,” as Graham refers to it, includes an offering of low-rise single-family homes ranging from 1,200 to 5,000 square feet as well as townhomes, stacked townhomes, low-rise condominiums, and apartments. “We don’t get into the concrete and steel—that’s a very different business model—but as far as homes, low-rise or what we call ground-oriented homes, we build every style and every kind of those,” he explains.

In 2004, Cardel Homes made its foray into recreational products with the construction of the two main buildings at Kicking Horse Mountain Resort in Golden, BC, as well as into the real estate, land acquisition, and development market.

As Graham explains, “We go out and we acquire land in all of our divisions and we take it through the entitlement process, we get all of the approvals in place, and we oversee all of the construction and onsite servicing to the point where we can turn over service lots to our homebuilding division. We certainly scrutinize the market to see what the land opportunities are for the future and that’s what we’ve been able to do in those four markets.”

Strong foundations
To ensure long-term, sustainable growth, Cardel Homes established itself in the market with a solid product and outstanding service while structuring the company like its homes—on a solid foundation and with the right team guiding it forward.

“The best thing about the way we’ve established ourselves is we do have a corporate office, our C-Suite, that provides oversight on all of operations, but each of our divisions has a division leader who’s accountable for running the operations and running the land,” says Graham.

He adds, “We’re there to support them, but we provide them with some autonomy. We empower them to make decisions. The corporate office is our investment arm, so they treat us as their advisor and they actually operate as if it was their business. When it’s a hands-on ownership mentality like that it’s pretty easy to see how they drive the business to success.”

With its level of talent, skills, resources, and support, Cardel Homes has discovered a successful formula that it has been able to replicate over the decades. While the core philosophy and approach has remained the same, the company goes a step further with its trade partners to identify and utilize the latest tools, materials, and innovative approaches.

“We still build houses the same way we did 50 years ago: we excavate, dig a hole, pour foundation, frame it up with wood frame, put a roof on it, put windows in it, and develop the interiors,” says Graham. “We work with our trade partners on innovation into their supplies (HVAC, air conditioning, tankless water heaters), we talk about concrete and how concrete is evolving and the technology therein, so we’re constantly looking for innovation in the way we do things.”

He adds, “We’re always looking for constant improvement and looking for new innovative ideas that we can incorporate into our business philosophy that we believe customers will embrace and want to have as part of their house. We can build the house; they have to make it a home.”

Ultimately, for Graham and the rest of the Cardel Homes team, “Our goal is to shape communities and build houses that our clients can embrace and turn into homes. We’re looking to make sure we can continue to deliver safe, secure, comfortable places where people feel they belong. Whenever we are away, we always look forward to getting home, so our job is to provide the structure that people feel they can come home to.”

Building for the future
This year, Cardel Homes is taking a moment to celebrate the milestone 50 years it has been in operation, while remaining deeply committed to ensuring that the company thrives for another 50 or more by overcoming the current challenges of the day.

“Both in Canada and the U.S. over the next ten years, government has to understand that they have to work in partnership with the development and home building community to meet those [housing] targets that they said are required. Otherwise, it’s economics 101; we’re going to have a shortage in residential housing, prices are going to escalate again, and we’re going to be back into this inflationary problem that we’ve had over the last couple of years,” Graham cautions.

Acknowledging that the character and function of communities must be preserved, more must be done to encourage development and reduce the red tape to ensure there are sufficient levels of housing to meet population demands. This will also require a concerted effort by government, education, and industry to strengthen the talent pipeline to ensure homes can be built.

The good news, however, is that Cardel Homes is well positioned to take advantage of the market. With good land positions in the various markets it serves, a strong knowledge of the building industry, the right team of professionals on its side, and a commitment to continuous improvement, with the support of its partners the company will continue to deliver its quality homes to customers.

“That gives us longevity, that gives us visioning that we can share with our partners and our trades; when you work for Cardel, as long as we continue to do good work together, you have a future here,” says Graham of the opportunities to grow in the industry.

When it comes to the future, he says, “We’re looking at it not only from the eyes of the company but from the eyes of our customers, our trade partners. One of the things we pride ourselves on is our quick reflexes. We make quick decisions, we have solid management, we’ve got great dedication to our industry, so I think that bodes well for our team, our customers, and our industry as a whole.”

The post Built for Real Life<p class="company">Cardel Homes</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.