Bank expos link builders, clients

BUILDING SOMETHING: Roseann Dugan, Century 21 Rondeau Associates sales associate, talks with Roger Caberal of Acushnet at a Home Construction Expo organized by Bristol County Savings Bank. About 45 attendees came to the first of two expos held in early March. / PBN PHOTO/MARTIN GAVIN
BUILDING SOMETHING: Roseann Dugan, Century 21 Rondeau Associates sales associate, talks with Roger Caberal of Acushnet at a Home Construction Expo organized by Bristol County Savings Bank. About 45 attendees came to the first of two expos held in early March. / PBN PHOTO/MARTIN GAVIN

Bill Bachant, owner of Bill Bachant Builders, recently took some time out of his weekend to meet with potential clients.
The meet-and-greets yielded, he said, one solid appointment and the expectation of several follow-up phone calls from people interested in new-home construction.
Best of all, he got to hold all the meetings in one location, at the Bristol County Savings Bank’s Home Construction Expo, a new offering from the bank meant to get ahead in the game of capturing what Nelson Braga, senior vice president of residential lending, said is a re-emerging market.
“We’re trying to think outside the box. Everybody does the traditional seminars,” Braga said. “We thought we had to jazz it up a little this time. On a small, regional basis, I haven’t seen any [other banks] do a construction-specific expo.”
About 45 attendees came to the first of two expos held in early March, at White’s of Westport in Westport and at The Chateau in Norton.
There were about 20 vendors scheduled to participate, including builders, architects, remodeling-related business and real estate agents.
The expos were held free of charge and included educational sessions.
“I think there’s been pent-up demand. Housing was sort of sagging and I think the job market has started to stabilize,” Braga said. “The rates are low and that’s beneficial to consumers. The cost of materials is lower than it was. If you’re going to do new construction, now is the time to get out there and build.”
Braga said the bank has been doing more new-home construction loans than it has in quite some time, but did not have exact numbers available.
Many in new-home construction business are encouraged by the fact that there was close to a 19 percent increase in single-family building permits issued in Rhode Island from 2011 to 2012. There were 682 such permits issued last year, up from 575 the year before. Single-family building permits took a sharp dive in 2008, dropping over 40 percent from 1,458 issued in 2007, to 868.
A high point in numbers provided by the Rhode Island Builders Association was 2,639 permits issued in 1999 and that is about where the state should be, according to Executive Director John Marcantonio.
“The new-home construction market has a lot of problems. If I had to describe it, I’d say it exists in two areas, high-end and subsidized,” Marcantonio said. “The traditional middle-class market doesn’t exist anymore.”
Marcantonio blames, besides the economy, what he called an “indirectly created” cost structure in the state that is prohibitive to building residential properties through decreased education funding and too many infrastructure problems with, for instance, water and sewer lines.
“In order to solve this problem, it has to be a comprehensive discussion. The market in Rhode Island isn’t just going to bounce back,” he said. “You might see that happening in other states, but there weren’t cost issues to begin with.”
Bachant, who has run his business for 30 years, agrees that the new-home construction market probably won’t ever see its pre-recession levels again but, he said, it is coming back to some extent.
The company is right now working on two projects and felt he would soon be talking to a new client he met through the expo.
“Right now, it’s retirement people who know exactly what they want to retire to or people who really have some money,” said Bachant, who is based in East Wareham, Mass., and gets about 50 percent of his business from neighboring communities in Bristol County. “The simple fact is that there are so many existing homes still on the market, so that makes it difficult,” he said. “It’s going to take a while to clear out the foreclosure inventory and stuff like that.”
Roseann Dugan, a sales associate with Century 21 Rondeau Associates in Bristol, exhibited at the expo in Westport with a couple of co-workers in order to “get out in front of the public.”
She was interested in letting potential buyers know about her available lots in Bristol and on a subdivision in Warren.
“New-home construction has taken a huge hit. Now that there’s some degree of consumer confidence back, we’re hoping numbers [will go up],” Dugan said. “I haven’t seen anything like [the expo organized] before. We always do new-home, first-time buyer seminars, that sort of thing. That’s been done and redone and this is a way to get out in front of buyers and answer their questions.”
Dugan said she feels there actually is an inventory deficit for the “move-up” buyer who is considering their second, and maybe permanent, home and wants a custom-made residence.
Eric Meyer, an agent with Sankey Realty in Attleboro, said he and business partner John Boss felt the expo was a good opportunity to connect with not only potential clients but all the vendors, including builders and banks.
Last year his company did 68 side transactions and Meyer said there was some new construction within that business but that rehab and flip buyers still are strongest.
Braga hoped anyone who attended the expos walked away with more confidence in the entire process.
“We hope that No. 1 is education,” he said. “If we can educate the consumer, it helps [them] navigate the process.” •

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