Pool & Spa News - Abandonment Issues - June 2009
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I have read a bunch lately about abandoned pools in California. Most of those articles related to foreclosed homes that no one was living in. This story tells about how it is not only the homeowners bailing on their pools, it is also some builders.
This is important to consider. Although your builder might seem perfectly stable, things happen. In this economy, a lawsuit, a missed payment from one customer, or a whole host of other things could send a builder into financial disaster.
So, what do you do?
Good question. No matter what you do, you may not be able to fully protect yourself but should take as many precautions as possible.
Here are a few things to consider for this situation:
Make sure you are not maxed out. If you are buying a $30,000 pool and only have $30,000, you could be putting yourself into a bind. With any construction project, it is always recommended that you have a percentage of the budget put away for incidentals and unforeseen emergencies (and pools tend to have unforeseens in general). In this economy, you should have enough put away in case your builder goes under and you have to go it on your own. You may want to add potential legal fees into this equation as well.
Fully vet the builder. There are new companies popping up everywhere right now and there are still those that have been around for years. You have to do your homework on these guys. Where are they financially? How are current customers being treated? And so on. Don't just take the word of the salesman, look up as much as you can on them. Remember, a salesman is never going to say things are bad, they will just spin it to a positive. For example, if you ask them how business is (and their sales are a 1/4 of where they should be at that time), they will say business is better than they had projected. See the spin? They avoided answering your question because salesmen are never supposed to downplay their business.
Check up with current customers who are in the middle of their projects. Keep in touch with them. The company abandoning their project can be an indicator of what will happen to you.
Renegotiate the payment terms of the contract. The builders need cash flow. Getting big deposits and upfront payments may be keeping them afloat. Although that may be business as usual, it is not your job to finance their operations. The builders will fight you tooth and nail on this but if they want your business, they will have to compromise. Your objective should be to have exactly what you have paid for in your backyard. In other words, you don't want to have 25% of the product installed and have paid for 95% of it.
Some builders will get your money and put you on the back burner as they rush to get others to a payment phase to collect cash. This is actually pretty commonplace even when the economy is good. It goes back to cash flow. This situation, particularly right now, is how they get themselves into trouble.
Pay attention to what they are doing back there. Are you getting what you paid for or are they cutting corners? The builders are trying to find any way possible to make more money right now. Make sure that it isn't going on in your yard. See the article Trusting Your Builder To Do The Right Thing. Although that situation may not be a result of cutting corners and could just be negligence or inexperience, it is why you need to watch what is going on.
Don't fret. The good news is that the builders want to get your money and get out of your yard as quickly as possible. That can mean shorter building times than usual.
28 June 2009
23 June 2009
Pool & Spa News - Seasonal Visas Meeting New Roadblocks - 5.13.2009
Pool & Spa News - Seasonal Visas Meeting New Roadblocks - 5.13.2009
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If that tile crew is behind schedule, this could be one reason.
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If that tile crew is behind schedule, this could be one reason.
20 June 2009
15 June 2009
Trusting Your Builder To Do The Right Thing
My Spa Is Cracked!
The above forum link on GardenWeb is one of those horror stories you hear about pool builders. In this instance, a brand new spa has cracked and will have to be ripped apart to fix. There are a number of reasons that this can occur.
After looking through the construction pictures from this, it is my opinion that the builder did not install the spa correctly. Whenever a spa is raised this far out of the ground, there should be a footer under it. There are also questions as to the stability of the soil under it, how the steel was run, and so on. Attention to detail would have prevented this from happening.
To credit the builder, they seem dedicated to fixing the problem. Although, the proposed solution seems to me to be a temporary fix and I believe that the spa should be completely ripped out and built correctly. Yes, a nightmare. Either way, a brand new spa has to be torn apart and repaired.
I have seen situations like this many times. They can result from a whole host of things. Even though you are trusting your builder to do their job and to know what they are doing, being involved back there will benefit you greatly.
Since I haven't seen this project firsthand, I can only speculate as to what all of the factors were that caused the spa to crack. In all fairness, this can happen for reasons out of the builder's hands as well.
This may or may not be what happened here, but these are some examples of how things like this occur:
The salesman never designed a spa like this before, didn't talk to a construction authority about the proper design.
The company didn't look over the design carefully and question it.
Someone raised a red flag but the salesman didn't want to go back to the customer for more money. The salesman decided not to ask for more money (maybe he got the job because he was a couple of bucks less than the other guy, etc.). Maybe he hoped no one would catch it, or that they would catch it and just do what they needed to do. Salesman are good for "missing" things and hoping that construction will do what's right and at their expense. Sometimes the salesman does this with the intention of just being back charged for the mistake or taking the chance that they won't be back charged.
The subcontractors saw this, but there wasn't extra money in the job for their extra work. Therefore, they just did what was on plan. Maybe they were ticked off that day because they didn't get paid for a similar thing last week.
The supervisor was non existent or inexperienced. In the thread, the homeowner mentioned that the supervisor just came by to pick up the checks. This sounds like the pool was left up to the subcontractors to build. If the homeowner paid considerably less for the product than he would have from others and had no expectation of supervision, okay. If not, this is unacceptable. I would suspect, do to the size of the company, that he was sold on supervision and experience. Both of which, seemed to be lacking on this project.
The job was sold on a number, not on what was the right thing to do. Salesmen are in a bind with fierce competition right now. Many buyers are fixed on a bottom line and this can put the salesman into a box if he lets it. If you are fixed on a bottom line instead of what actually needs to be done, things like this can happen. Maybe other companies didn't calculate extra engineering or work into their bids and the salesman was afraid to with his for fear of losing the job by being significantly more expensive.
Construction didn't catch the design flaw. Mistakes happen but this should have been caught before any of the work was scheduled.
Whatever the case, it starts with the salesman. With most construction projects and particularly pools, once something goes wrong it can be a snowball effect from there.
As you can see, there can be a number of factors that can attribute to a disaster in your yard. It is a place where you don't want to be. If you have a question about something that is going on, stop the project and get answers. Buyers get scared of doing this because they see the finish line and often just hope things will work themselves out. Ultimately, it is you that will have that mess in your yard. You will be the one dealing with it and the one staring at it. It's your money, so take the time to supervise the supervision.
The above forum link on GardenWeb is one of those horror stories you hear about pool builders. In this instance, a brand new spa has cracked and will have to be ripped apart to fix. There are a number of reasons that this can occur.
After looking through the construction pictures from this, it is my opinion that the builder did not install the spa correctly. Whenever a spa is raised this far out of the ground, there should be a footer under it. There are also questions as to the stability of the soil under it, how the steel was run, and so on. Attention to detail would have prevented this from happening.
To credit the builder, they seem dedicated to fixing the problem. Although, the proposed solution seems to me to be a temporary fix and I believe that the spa should be completely ripped out and built correctly. Yes, a nightmare. Either way, a brand new spa has to be torn apart and repaired.
I have seen situations like this many times. They can result from a whole host of things. Even though you are trusting your builder to do their job and to know what they are doing, being involved back there will benefit you greatly.
Since I haven't seen this project firsthand, I can only speculate as to what all of the factors were that caused the spa to crack. In all fairness, this can happen for reasons out of the builder's hands as well.
This may or may not be what happened here, but these are some examples of how things like this occur:
The salesman never designed a spa like this before, didn't talk to a construction authority about the proper design.
The company didn't look over the design carefully and question it.
Someone raised a red flag but the salesman didn't want to go back to the customer for more money. The salesman decided not to ask for more money (maybe he got the job because he was a couple of bucks less than the other guy, etc.). Maybe he hoped no one would catch it, or that they would catch it and just do what they needed to do. Salesman are good for "missing" things and hoping that construction will do what's right and at their expense. Sometimes the salesman does this with the intention of just being back charged for the mistake or taking the chance that they won't be back charged.
The subcontractors saw this, but there wasn't extra money in the job for their extra work. Therefore, they just did what was on plan. Maybe they were ticked off that day because they didn't get paid for a similar thing last week.
The supervisor was non existent or inexperienced. In the thread, the homeowner mentioned that the supervisor just came by to pick up the checks. This sounds like the pool was left up to the subcontractors to build. If the homeowner paid considerably less for the product than he would have from others and had no expectation of supervision, okay. If not, this is unacceptable. I would suspect, do to the size of the company, that he was sold on supervision and experience. Both of which, seemed to be lacking on this project.
The job was sold on a number, not on what was the right thing to do. Salesmen are in a bind with fierce competition right now. Many buyers are fixed on a bottom line and this can put the salesman into a box if he lets it. If you are fixed on a bottom line instead of what actually needs to be done, things like this can happen. Maybe other companies didn't calculate extra engineering or work into their bids and the salesman was afraid to with his for fear of losing the job by being significantly more expensive.
Construction didn't catch the design flaw. Mistakes happen but this should have been caught before any of the work was scheduled.
Whatever the case, it starts with the salesman. With most construction projects and particularly pools, once something goes wrong it can be a snowball effect from there.
As you can see, there can be a number of factors that can attribute to a disaster in your yard. It is a place where you don't want to be. If you have a question about something that is going on, stop the project and get answers. Buyers get scared of doing this because they see the finish line and often just hope things will work themselves out. Ultimately, it is you that will have that mess in your yard. You will be the one dealing with it and the one staring at it. It's your money, so take the time to supervise the supervision.
14 June 2009
Suggestion Box
How To Survive Buying And Building A Swimming Pool is looking to feature your comments, questions and suggestions in upcoming posts. Please feel free to leave anything in the comments section of this posting that you would like answered or think would be useful.
A few sample questions to think about:
1. What would you like to see addressed on the blog?
2. What questions have come up for you during the pool process?
3. Where have you searched for answers, did you find them?
4. Were there any things that you wished you knew more about before moving forward on your project?
A few sample questions to think about:
1. What would you like to see addressed on the blog?
2. What questions have come up for you during the pool process?
3. Where have you searched for answers, did you find them?
4. Were there any things that you wished you knew more about before moving forward on your project?
07 June 2009
The Swimming Pool Sales Funnel
For years, salesman have used a selling system labeled as The Sales Funnel. There are arguments out there that this has become outdated but many follow this school of thought.
The basics are quite simple and can give you some insight into how you are being herded through the sales pipeline. It is a you versus the salesman principle that you need to keep in mind when purchasing a pool, or anything else for that matter. Not all salespeople are evil though but they do all have one objective: to turn you into a sale, therefore making a profit off of you.
The Sales Funnel:
The basics are quite simple and can give you some insight into how you are being herded through the sales pipeline. It is a you versus the salesman principle that you need to keep in mind when purchasing a pool, or anything else for that matter. Not all salespeople are evil though but they do all have one objective: to turn you into a sale, therefore making a profit off of you.
The Sales Funnel:
picture provided by creative commons license granted by http://engineerscansell.com/ from Wikipedia Article: Sales Tunnel
Source: Wikipedia
The Sales Funnel converted to Swimming Pools...
New Opportunity
It is here that you enter the world of becoming a potential buyer. You are looking at websites, pictures and thinking about how nice it would be to have a pool. The salesman is sitting by the phone waiting for you to move to the next level.
Initial Communication
You order a brochure, fill out an online inquiry about pool contractors or call that ad you just got in the mail. The salesman now has the opportunity to get your information and convert you into a lead. Actually, as soon as you give any information to anything or anyone, you become a lead. A sales lead is a potential buying customer and you can expect to be treated as such. That means, you are going to get a call from someone that wants to meet with you. That is fine, if you are ready for this process. In this step, you will be contacted by a salesman, a lead manager, a secretary, or someone else from the pool company. In some cases, you will receive a packet of information or a brochure before a phone call but you can count on being personally contacted. That is, unless they are not interested in earning your business. The initial communication then leads to the fact finding phase.
Fact Finding
The salesman will contact you and want to find out where you are in the thought process of a swimming pool. He will want to find out the basics like your name and location but he is really looking to see where you are in the thought process and how much you potentially have to spend with him. This stage is very important to the salesman because it can dictate what his strategy for you will be. Salesman aren't in the practice of wasting time, so they want to find out if you are really serious about a pool and what it is you are looking for. The salesman is looking for as much telling information as he can get in order to convert you into a sale. Things like: have you met with other pool companies, location and how hard it is to build a pool there, if you can even build a pool in your yard, if you can afford his pool, if you are in his market, are you ready to buy now, etc.
Develop Solution, Propose Solution and Solution Evaluation
The problem is how to get you to buy and the solution is to present different avenues that push you to that point. This can be anything from showing you pictures to laying out a design in your yard. If you are being resistant to moving forward the salesman needs to figure out what your objective is and find a solution to it. For example, you don't want to buy right now because you were hoping to wait for another month or two. The salesman wants the sale so he may come up with an incentive to get you to move now. This may be a deal or it may be a statement to the effect of "now is the time to do this because we are going to be really busy in a month or two." Even though a pool is typically more of an emotional purchase, look for the salesman to play on this and to build up that it can be a rational purchase. A good salesman should have a counter to whatever your argument is for not buying. In other words, a solution.
Negotiation
You have been presented the concept of having a beautiful new swimming pool in your yard. Now, you need to negotiate. Yes, there is always room for negotiation, particularly in the current economy. You will be much better off if you have at least a couple of other proposals when moving into this phase. The salesman is paid a commission on the pool. That commission can be a minimum or it can be a home run. Obviously, the salesman isn't looking to make the minimum and you shouldn't be interested in making him rich off of one sale. The salesman will use numerous tactics to steer you towards the commission he is seeking and negotiating can help you get to a fair median. This phase can be frustrating and difficult but doing it smartly will be of great benefit to you.
Purchase Order
The contract is written and handed to you to review. Once everything is agreed upon, the sale is made and you are on your way to getting a new pool. What is on the contract is what you should be getting. You can't expect that any freebies will come your way, so make sure everything is on there that you think you are getting and make sure you understand everything that is on the agreement. Surprises down the road are the majority of complaints lodged against builders. Sometimes they are the builder's fault. Sometimes they are a salesman fault. And, sometimes they are the result of a buyer not fully understanding what they bought or confusing what another company told them with what this company told them. Whatever the situation, it is ultimately up to you to be your best protection or worst nightmare.
Account Maintenance
A good salesman provides service not only to get the sale but during and after the sale. In the pool business, there are good and bad salesmen. Although thoroughly vetting the salesman helps, most of the time it is just a luck of the draw scenario. Finding out how well the salesman services his customers after the sale is usually an indicator of what to expect. Many pool customers feel lost during the process and having a crutch, such as a salesman that stays involved is a big help.
03 June 2009
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