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History Maker specializes in building affordable houses at reasonable costs, often for first-time homebuyers. By keeping the workflow steady, suppliers and building teams can cut costs to the company, which can then pass the savings onto buyers, Mitchell said.
Mitchell said he didn't always intend to join the family business.
" I did grow up in it, doing all the nasty summer jobs that come with growing up in a family business, taking out trash and sweeping out houses, Mitchell said. Then I woke up and realized one day that I have a great opportunity."
That realization came about halfway through college, he said, and he started working at the company in 1994, not long after graduation. Under his watch, it has rapidly expanded.
About five years ago, the company started construction on two homes and also finished another two homes each day, he said. Now, five are started and five are finished each day.
"It definitely is a manufacturing approach to this business, and it's all toward efficiency and driving out waste", he said.
Typically, the construction business is seasonal, with more being built in warmer, drier months of the year and tapering off in the wet, wintery months. Because of this, prices on building goods and labor can also fluctuate, depending on demand, Mitchell said. But with year-round construction being done at a dependable rate, prices are lower for construction and therefore buyers can save.
"People think, oh, more home for less cost, you must be cutting corners somewhere. But we're not," said Mary Ellen Frost, the company's regional sales manager for the South. "We're just keeping things steady."
Just as History Maker keeps steady relationships with its suppliers, it tries to keep steady relationships with its Realtors. A 34-5 Realtor reward program was instituted in mid-2005, Frost said, to encourage Realtors to keep coming back to sell History Maker Homes.
Each year, a Realtor can work through the reward program. The first History Maker home sold earns 3 percent on the sale; the second, 4 percent. For the third and every other sale during the calendar year, the realtor earns 5 percent.
"It's nice to get those 5 percent paydays," Frost said.
Frost said that since about four out of five homebuyers use a Realtor, it only made good sense to help foster the company's relationship with them.
"We try to keep it real simple but consistent so it's easy to do business with us," she said.
For buyers, History Maker tries to offer as many options as possible when building a house. There is a 10,000-square-foot showroom in North Richland Hills, which shows thousands of samples of flooring, countertops, appliances, faucets, hardware and the other things, which make the shell of a house into more of a home. Also, each model has two to four floor plans to choose from, Frost said.
Despite troubles with the subprime lending market, History Maker is still focused on the future of the housing market, rather than the present.
"Things will get better and this is a cyclical industry. It's all about positioning for when the market begins to rebound," Nelson Mitchell said.
He said the downturn of the market has affected everybody but that History Maker was in an advantageous position because it had its own mortgage company.
And being able to give families homes is what the business all comes down to, Mitchell said.
"That's what makes it a very enjoyable process at the end of the day, when you hand someone their keys and they thought they'd never be able to get their own home," he said.
As in the future of History Maker, Mitchell said he's interested in continual growth. Additionally, he has three young sons, and he said there's a possibility for a fifth generation to continue building homes for the Metroplex.
Contact Bassett at ebassett@bizpress.net
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