Before the Shovel: When the Pre-Construction Process Starts Turning Dirt

So I wanted to ask you, you've been doing this for 22 years now.

Has

it been that long?

Yeah, and the PSA process isn't something that we typically would see in a production build.

No, you would not.

And it's very unique to custom.

And so what do you think clients are often surprised about whenever they get into that PSA process?

I think They're probably surprised about the formality of it and why it does need to be so formal because really what it's doing is protecting them.

It's giving them a roadmap, if you will, about what work is going to be done, what work will be performed, what the builder needs to be doing, what they need to be doing, what the architect needs to be doing, all to bring everything together for a construction contract and then the actual build itself.

What phase of the PSA process do you think people often underestimate and think maybe, oh, we could probably just skip that? There's got to be at least one.

I don't know that they believe that they can skip maybe, for example, the architectural phase.

I think they might believe that it moves through a little bit more quickly than it does.

I don't believe they think there's much importance to maybe some of the ARCs, the architectural review boards, or the The DRCs, the design review committees, have the importance they have and they play into the actual design process.

So that's probably something that they don't know much about.

And they probably also don't understand how important and how much time it takes to actually put that budget together either.

So I don't know that there's some things that they don't think might happen, but maybe things happen more quickly, if that makes sense.

And what do you think is the most crucial step in that process?

I think the design phase.

Absolutely, because the design phase is going to lead into whether you get approval by the HOA or the ARC or DRC.

It's going to lead into, are we meeting our budget? Are we not meeting our budget? It's going to go into how fast are we permitted? Are the plans meeting code and that type of thing? So I truly believe that that design phase, when you're sitting down with the architect or the designer, is the most important part of what we're talking about here during the pre-construction process.