REFLECTIONS FROM THE CEO

Back to Articles

Feedback from customers on their homes over the last few months makes it clear that “the time it took to build” was the major and often the only negative in their construction experience with Pringle Development. Consequently, I thought I should provide a bit of perspective on the “strong” 2004 – 2005 housing market and its impact on our company.

In 1999, the year that I joined our company, Pringle operated in a single community, selling fewer than 200 homes per year. In contrast, during 2005, we sold over 900 homes in four communities! In the short period between the beginning of 2004 and the end of 2005, we grew from less than 100 employees to over 200. One cannot achieve that level of growth without growing pains, even in the best of times.

But, in the case of the housing boom, our need for new people was matched by the same need among our competitors at the same time. Turnover in the “operations” part of our entire industry became rampant. More and more builders competing for fewer and fewer labor and material resources dramatically increased construction cycle times - not only ours - but also those of other builders in the region. Government agencies added further to the delays because they could not keep pace with new permit applications.

Pringle’s “initial quality” also declined during this period as we strove to cope with the unexpected demand. New and inexperienced help (sometimes all that we could find to help us move toward fulfilling our contractual obligations) caused slower work and additional time for training. The bottom line though, is that Pringle never abandoned its commitment to “final quality”.

Even in those few cases where we are still actively engaged in correcting initial quality issues, our goal is to deliver every home to a standard that at least meets and preferably exceeds the quality initially promised.

Our reputation suffered due to the above-mentioned growing pains and also due in part to a unique aspect of the Pringle business model – deferred construction. Many people only remember the initial estimates they got from their salesperson at a time before anyone realized the extent to which operational resources would be strained. Those salespeople gave honest assessments of the time expected between design appointment and construction based on our historical performance to that point. They should not be faulted if those estimates became impossible to meet later due to unforeseen circumstances.

I am happy to report that Management was not ignoring these issues even as they were occurring. During the time when all builders were struggling to complete homes timely and with high quality, our management committed Pringle Development to pursue National Housing Quality certification by the National Association of Homebuilders. This program required a thorough review of business and construction processes and then requires continuous improvements to improve quality and customer satisfaction.

Committing to such a time consuming program was not the easiest thing to do at a time when we were tempted to devote ALL of our corporate resources to “putting out fires”. However, it is proving to have been a wise decision. Among the improvements made, we:

Because of these process improvements, cycle times have begun dropping and our customers are reporting significantly higher initial quality at closing.

We appreciate the patience and understanding shown by so many of you. Please know that we are committed to the continued success of all of our Lake County Communities and all of our customers. For those of you who questioned whether to recommend us to your friends, we only hope that over time, you will come to believe that although the road you traveled may have been bumpy, it led to a wonderful destination. We are continuing to improve that road, daily.

Alan A. Parrow
CEO/President
Pringle Development

Back to Articles