Younger Homes founder Jesse Younger joins host Mike Collignon and Sam Rashkin of Housing 2.0 to discuss a sustainable, inclusive community development outside Austin. They cover offsite construction, mass customization and digitization, and the building envelope choices that work in a hot, humid climate.
00:00:01:02 - 00:00:25:20
Mike Collignon: So who is this guest that I'm referring to? And what is his favorite barbecue? I mean, what is he really to talk about? So we have Jesse Younger of younger homes with us today. And Jesse is a natural entrepreneur and driven individual with a talent for system design, construction and problem solving. He started his career in the homebuilding industry at a young age and learned the importance of quality construction practices, carpentry, and drafting.
00:00:25:22 - 00:00:59:22
Mike Collignon: Jesse graduated with honors from Texas A&M with a degree in mechanical engineering. Now, under Jesse and his wife Danielle's leadership, Younger Homes has received several prestigious awards, including the 2019 Green Builder Media Sustainable Home of the year finalist, House Best of Service 2019 through 2023, House Best of Design 2020 through 2023, and the Greater Austin Home Builders Association Max Award winner for Best Custom Home in 2019, 2021 and 2022.
00:00:59:27 - 00:01:20:13
Mike Collignon: Now, before we get to their story, I do need to tell you about our sponsors. The first is Mitsubishi Electric. Mitsubishi Electric promote sustainable building through the electrification of residential and commercial heating and cooling products. Their mission is to advance technologies that reduce waste output, promote sustainable resource cycles while increasing energy efficiency, and eliminating dependance on fossil fuels.
00:01:20:17 - 00:01:50:00
Mike Collignon: Next we have. They are a leading national residential, solar and energy storage provider with a specialized team dedicated to the home building industry. Their experience in the new home sector means they understand the complexities of home building, and offer customized solutions to help you build homes that home buyers actually want. All while staying on schedule. With over 50 homebuilder partners across the country, Sinovac was founded to deliver customers a better energy service at a better price through their solar and solar plus energy storage service offerings.
00:01:50:00 - 00:02:16:18
Mike Collignon: They are disrupting the traditional energy landscape and the way the 21st century customer generates and consumes electricity. We also have Schneider Electric, who is driving the digital transformation of modern homes with smart and sustainable energy solutions for ultimate comfort and energy efficiency. Their connected home ecosystem of smart energy management solutions provides digital control of energy use throughout a home from the grid via their smart electrical panel to their connected buying devices.
00:02:16:19 - 00:02:39:10
Mike Collignon: This grid, the plug grid to plug solution, makes it significantly easier to create smart solar power and backup power ready homes, both now and in the future. Now, Panasonic Healthy Indoor Living Solutions is helping builders across the country differentiate themselves with powerful, code compliant and cost effective indoor air quality solutions that provide a safer environment for home buyers.
00:02:39:12 - 00:03:06:16
Mike Collignon: And Genco Solar is a leading PV module manufacturer and energy storage system integrator. The company has deployed more than 100GW of their Eagle modules in 160 countries globally, including more than 17, sorry, 17GW right here in the US. Eagle storage brings together the best energy storage technology for turnkey hardware and energy storage services. Eagle is a trusted choice for US solar and storage projects.
00:03:06:17 - 00:03:36:09
Mike Collignon: And finally, we have LP Building Solutions. LP Building Solutions is committed to building a better world by empowering builders to choose resilient, sustainable and efficient building materials to construct the structures, families and individuals live, work and play in every day. Through a diverse portfolio of resilient structural solutions and beautiful, durable siding products, all made with 100% sustainably sourced wood fiber, LP is able to provide real solutions that address many environmental issues.
00:03:36:10 - 00:03:56:12
Mike Collignon: Builders and homeowners face today for LP. Building a better world means manufacturing and environmentally responsible solutions so that we can all build better together. Now you can submit questions for Jesse. You're going to use that questions box over there in the go to webinar control panel. And we're actually going to take those during different intervals throughout the presentation.
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Mike Collignon: So don't be hesitant to submit your questions to him. Now for a little bit more on the youngers. We have Sam Raskin with us here today, and he's going to give kind of a little bit of a personal perspective on his relationship with the youngers. Hey, Sam, how are you doing, buddy?
00:04:12:16 - 00:04:39:19
Sam Rashkin: Hey, great, Mike, and thank you so much, everyone, for attending. This is a really important and very special session we're doing today. Jesse and Daniel Younger with younger homes are like the for me, just the future housing in a whole new firm moving into the landscape. They're embracing all of what we've been speaking about and housing 2.0 workshops.
00:04:39:20 - 00:05:13:20
Sam Rashkin: They're looking at a of offsite solutions. They've done a user experience optimized designs. They apply mass customization. And they're working with a digitization aggregator. So their projects are fully digitized. If you've been attending our workshops, you know this. These are the four key innovations that will drive disruption in the housing industry will lead to faster, better, cheaper homes and to have such an amazing young company kind of look at housing as a whole.
00:05:13:20 - 00:05:32:23
Sam Rashkin: New opportunity to be taken to the next level is very exciting for us. And so it couldn't be happier that Jesse is here today to share progress with his really important new development. Please pay attention. This is the future of housing. Jesse, thank you so much for coming today.
00:05:32:26 - 00:05:55:19
Jesse Younger: It's absolutely my pleasure. And yeah, don't really know what to say. I'm I'm humbled by the by by the words and just hear all the words being read out again. It's it's been an amazing journey. And has it been one done individually? We've been surrounded by a wonderful group of people who share, or like minded people. So it's been great and honored to be here.
00:05:55:20 - 00:06:38:07
Jesse Younger: Thanks for having me. I would like to just share a quick video that our Land Planner Digital put together. It's an overview of the project with some some audio over the top from digital built themselves, describing all the intricacies and all the thought that went into the land plan thus far. So make sure your audio is on and Mary whenever you're ready.
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Narrator: Destinations within Largo plays are connected to an intricate network of streets and paths, as well as a series of carefully orchestrated views.
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Narrator: Classical planning techniques like terminated vistas.
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Narrator: Deflected vistas.
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Narrator: And gateways are employed throughout the neighborhood. It feels as though every inch of the 19 acres has been planned as if it were a garden.
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Narrator: In Largo Place. The architecture and urban design are intertwined and attuned to the environment. The buildings and Lego plates are primarily characterized by their simplicity and consistency, creating a harmonious atmosphere without being monotonous. Our warm climate encourages outdoor living, and so the homes and commercial spaces are designed to promote natural ventilation and feature outdoor spaces.
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Narrator: The use of natural and authentic materials allows buildings to mature gracefully, evoking a sense of place rather than time. By incorporating new technologies without making them the primary focus, we have established a timeless and enduring architectural style.
00:07:57:26 - 00:08:23:19
Narrator: While the site's topography is a challenge, it also offers opportunities to create a more compact and therefore walkable layout. Anything but an exercise in cookie cutter engineering. Site planning is approached as a three dimensional puzzle. The streets and alleys accommodate cars and emergency vehicles, yet they have an old world charm that invites us to walk or pedal instead of drive.
00:08:23:22 - 00:08:54:10
Narrator: Upon reaching the summit, one finds something we don't often get to experience without a passport. A taste of human scaled urbanism. Hilltop square is both the geographic and social hub of the community. A carefully designed ensemble of two story buildings create the walls of what feels like an outdoor room. Screening the space from the side and sounds of highway 1431, the sound of traffic is replaced by the sound of water from fountains.
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Narrator: Friendly conversation between neighbors, children playing, leaves rustling in the breeze. It is an oasis. It is where festivals take place. Traditions are established and community is built.
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Narrator: Lego place is a community crafted both for and from the region that embodies the essence of Texas Hill Country.
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Jesse Younger: I feel like you could just drop the mic after that. It's what a great presentation and just a great. I don't know, just a great way to really showcase everything that goes into it. And when people ask, where does the development start? It really starts with selecting someone like digital who is like minded on a fundamental level, but also flexible enough to to listen to Danielle and me who are in the community, who know the land, know the people in the area and are able to kind of meld the two, you know, make our our dreams and visions come to come to reality.
00:10:16:15 - 00:10:43:13
Jesse Younger: And yeah, really, really proud about where we're at right now with with the project. But before we jump into that, I did want to dive in a little bit more about about Danielle and our story, just about how we got here as. You know, from a primarily custom builder to a semi-custom to a to a developer. Now, so Younger Homes was started in 2016, in Austin, Texas.
00:10:43:14 - 00:11:03:26
Jesse Younger: And my background, I grew up in the construction industry with my dad's company. He started building homes and remodeling in 1976, and I was working for him since before I could drive. I'd ride to work with him and quickly put me in the field, digging post holes, pouring concrete, and it taught me I needed to go to college.
00:11:03:29 - 00:11:25:10
Jesse Younger: It was a very, very rough ruff ruff summer. But taught me a lot, kind of progressing through. Ended up running framing crews and eventually taught myself AutoCAD, did blueprints and quickly realized that construction was at that point, you know, the way that we were framing plus or minus eighth of an inch and just throwing stuff up wasn't really for my OCD brain.
00:11:25:10 - 00:11:52:05
Jesse Younger: So, went to a mechanical engineering school at A&M where I can deal with thousands of an inch. And, yeah, I went into the corporate world before coming back to take over dad's company. Working for your dad. If you've ever done that, you realize there might be some, some healthy tension. So we ended up just selling the company in Houston and moving to Austin to start younger homes.
00:11:52:07 - 00:12:10:20
Jesse Younger: Danielle's background and toxicology and just her, just her nature and spirit and heart. We've always knew we wanted to work together and to have her, like, a husband and wife team, just the way that we make each other better. To have that on a company level has been very, very special. And I think she's our secret weapon to success.
00:12:10:22 - 00:12:41:17
Jesse Younger: She says she couldn't be here. Yeah. So younger homes, you heard you heard some of the awards. You know, we've been really blessed with with with success. And, it's it's it's also been a great place. The timing of it all, the location of everything has been truly a blessing. And being surrounded by people like Sam Green, Builder Media and several others to help nurture us along the way has been a key to our success as well.
00:12:41:20 - 00:13:15:20
Jesse Younger: Our journey didn't start obviously with development. We we did have this grandiose idea, though, that we wanted the way that we were building, we wanted it to be available and accessible to everyone. And the word everyone I hear is really the word that was impressed on our heart when we started Younger Homes is that, there's no there's no doubt that we're putting more into our homes than than most, right.
00:13:15:22 - 00:13:22:28
Jesse Younger: From from a material perspective, from a cost of goods perspective, we're putting in higher quality things, for sure.
00:13:23:01 - 00:13:47:11
Jesse Younger: But the bulk of the innovation really comes from just the forethought and thinking of the home as an engineered system, and really applying these principles on the front end of the home design. And so really, a bulk of the innovation really doesn't cost more money. But nonetheless, we were a young company, didn't have any investors or capital. So we needed to start with custom homes.
00:13:47:13 - 00:14:08:24
Jesse Younger: Custom homes are a great platform to start a business, right? We use clients capital to build amazing products, and we get to learn some things and build some things that we typically wouldn't do on our own. So here's two of our custom homes here now, and actually the one on the right here, this one just got we're a finalist in the HBO Awards this year.
00:14:08:26 - 00:14:33:06
Jesse Younger: This is our Scandinavian farmhouse. So yeah, just great opportunity to build some build some great homes. But how do we get this type of building accessible to everyone? That's where custom homes come into play. We called up Sam, went through the housing 2.0 program, and we took the best of the best of all the custom homes that we have.
00:14:33:07 - 00:15:06:20
Jesse Younger: We've built and pack them into three floor plans and basically simplify the options for our clients by. It's interesting that that custom homes cost a lot of money, not because of the things that's going in them per se, but it's because clients and architects who maybe aren't cost driven decisions, decision makers are making the decisions. You know, a custom home costs a lot of money because the 2000 square foot outdoor living or a five car garage, that's going to add to your price per square foot.
00:15:06:20 - 00:15:27:22
Jesse Younger: So, we're essentially protecting the client from the with a semi-custom product, and it's worked out really well. What we're finding is most people don't want to make all the decisions and figure out all the transitions and the grout spacing and the colors and all the things. It's they like the multiple choice rather than the fill in the blank, if that makes sense.
00:15:27:24 - 00:15:54:15
Jesse Younger: With our custom homes, we were able to achieve in all of our homes are Energy Star certified and Indoor Air Plus certified. We did not give our clients the option on that. That's a standard for us. By taking control of the design for the semi-custom homes, we're actually able to achieve a higher rating, a net zero rating, net zero ready rating, in addition to the indoor Air Plus rating.
00:15:54:18 - 00:16:32:26
Jesse Younger: So it's funny, people think that, well, the semi-custom home, you're getting less less home, right. Well, you might not be able to import marble from Italy, but you actually get more home, more bang for your buck with the semi-custom home that we offer. So with our custom homes, let's say we were in the two, two, three, 4 million plus range, our semi-custom homes, we're able to get to the sub $1 million range, $750,000, starting price point 240 $250 a square foot, which in our market is very, very competitive, especially when you see the spec sheet and the one pager of what you're getting for that, for that price.
00:16:32:29 - 00:17:08:15
Jesse Younger: But how do we get below 750? That's where development comes into play. We feel like we, we run the towel dry with the, with the vertical with the sticks and bricks piece. But in order to get to a lower price point, we had to control the land and just buy, buy by increasing control and increasing basically what's in our scope and our envelope, we were able to increase efficiency from cradle to grave of the entire homebuilding process and achieve that lower price point.
00:17:08:18 - 00:17:41:12
Jesse Younger: So yeah, the story of the 19 acres. It's again, no, no, no outside investors at this point, we're very I'm going to use the word control a lot. You'll find we Daniel and I like control. And so by keeping investors out, we're able to maintain control in side. So since 2016, knowing this was our vision, we slowly parceled off, you know, profits from year over year and purchased this property about a year, year and a half or two years ago.
00:17:41:12 - 00:18:04:04
Jesse Younger: Now, it's in our hometown. Since this was our first development, we wanted it to be close to home. We wanted to already know the market and know the community's needs. And this property was was available, right? It was actually right before the the freeze of February, during Covid that we that we picked up this property.
00:18:04:04 - 00:18:31:17
Jesse Younger: So it's going to be a mixed use development. It's about 35, 40 minutes from downtown Austin. Product diversity is key here. You'll see this digital calls this the Skittles map. Rightfully so. It's every different color represents a different product type. And I will talk a little bit more about products in a little bit, but, about 134 units on 19 acres.
00:18:31:17 - 00:19:05:17
Jesse Younger: So a lot, a lot packed into here. And given the the density and given the the land purchase price it really allows, it's going to allow us to do a lot, pack a lot into this little development for our community. Just like our, our homes. Now, there's going to be no compromise on energy efficiency. And from a development perspective, it will be what we call a sustainable development.
00:19:05:19 - 00:19:31:29
Jesse Younger: And I'll speak to sustainable development a little bit more what that means next. But I didn't know if there was any if there were any builders or anybody who's kind of on that builder track in the audience, who maybe has more questions about about our journey from what it means, like kind of how we started off as a builder, you know, custom, semi-custom to developer.
00:19:32:02 - 00:19:39:29
Jesse Younger: Does anybody have any questions? I hope this is going to be kind of an interactive, interactive presentation. So, Mike, are there any questions right now so far?
00:19:40:01 - 00:20:13:22
Mike Collignon: Yeah, we do have a couple of questions actually a few from from Darrell. And more may come in here as we talk. But to that point about development and we haven't really even gotten into the presentation yet. So you're probably going to get to some of these answers as we talk and go forward here. But Darrell was curious about what type of environments are your structures designed or best suited for, you know, is it for floodplains or mountains or extreme cold or extreme heat?
00:20:13:24 - 00:20:33:15
Mike Collignon: And then how might your work be best utilized? Or could it advise cities for healthy future planning for new additions or new developments in a sustainable manner? So I think let's start with those two from there.
00:20:33:18 - 00:21:08:17
Jesse Younger: Yeah that's great. So Travis County, we're in climate zone, climate zone two, I believe, right on the cusp. And thankfully, you know, having six years of practical building experience, we feel like we've honed in on a pretty a pretty good building envelope for our climate for our hot, humid climate. And I'll speak to more about this later. But we are going to we are going to put that to the test, because one of the initiatives of our sustainable development is to make it offsite construction ready as well.
00:21:08:17 - 00:21:35:16
Jesse Younger: So we really want to and that might force us to look at different building assemblies, to, to to make that achievable. And then from a, from the education piece you mentioned with the city. Absolutely like that, that to me is one of the biggest things that we can do as we go through this process and why we're so open to, to sharing and being transparent with this.
00:21:35:16 - 00:21:52:29
Jesse Younger: All the, you know, the good, bad and the ugly is we want this to be a roadmap for our city in particular, but maybe, maybe others. Maybe it's bigger than just Lago Vista. Maybe others can learn from it. You know, as we go through and present some of this about, here's here's how we did it. You know, here's what worked.
00:21:52:29 - 00:22:06:10
Jesse Younger: Well, here's what didn't here's what we do different. I mean, this is our first time doing a development. It's going to be not perfect. And we're okay with that for for the sake of the greater good.
00:22:06:13 - 00:22:14:16
Mike Collignon: All right. And we've got some more questions. I don't know if you want to go ahead and take them now. Or we can wait until you.
00:22:14:18 - 00:22:15:09
Mike Collignon: Get more.
00:22:15:11 - 00:22:23:23
Jesse Younger: About what sustainable development looks like. If you think the questions will be answered or talk through, I can just keep going through the next slide if,
00:22:23:25 - 00:22:35:04
Mike Collignon: Well, yeah, there actually is one in here. I think that that might work for you. And that is, do you utilize a sustainable supply chain?
00:22:35:07 - 00:22:45:25
Jesse Younger: Sustainable supply chain? Not per se.
00:22:45:27 - 00:22:51:13
Jesse Younger: That's a good question.
00:22:51:15 - 00:23:13:24
Mike Collignon: And I have to admit, Jesse, I don't know if there is a formal this is the title Sustainable Supply Chain or if this is more of a general reference to a sustainable supply chain. But we're talking about sustainability. We're talking about development. And so I thought amongst the other questions that remain here, some of which we'll get to a little bit later, I just thought I'd throw that one at, you.
00:23:13:28 - 00:23:30:06
Jesse Younger: Know, that's a good one in my brain. I'm trying to define sustainable supply chain first and then see if we were doing anything that meets that criteria. I'll need to think on that. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not. Nothing comes to mind at the moment. In a bullet point list.
00:23:30:09 - 00:23:34:16
Mike Collignon: That's fine.
00:23:34:18 - 00:23:39:18
Mike Collignon: Yeah, I would say go ahead and continue and then we can get to some of these other questions here as you as you go on.
00:23:39:21 - 00:23:56:13
Jesse Younger: Great. So what makes a development sustainable? And this is, this is this is the there's a lot of information here. Ton of information. So I am going to stop at the end of this and just see if you guys have any questions about about this.
00:23:56:15 - 00:24:22:19
Jesse Younger: Really the theme. What what worked well for us in building, was a principle that I learned from the engineering world, and that was to spend more time than most on the front end of design and defining the problem. In the engineering world. We would spend a time and money and resources on a on a product that was designed to last maybe six years.
00:24:22:20 - 00:24:43:11
Jesse Younger: Right. These are products that were designing, building, developing that are generational, that are designed to last a lifetime. So why would you not spend more time up front, learning and defining the problem? So the first thing that we that we did and again, we bought this property a long time ago.
00:24:43:14 - 00:25:06:04
Jesse Younger: Years ago, we spent a lot of time learning the land. Right. So this is us, me, my two kids. You build made this great, this this great file where we could essentially import the development to Google Earth. And on the Google Earth app, we were able to to circumnavigate, you know, this, this 19 acres and know exactly where we were within the development.
00:25:06:04 - 00:25:28:28
Jesse Younger: So it made it really easy to, hey, let's act like we're, you know, let's take a hike to the hilltop or let's go to the dog park and kind of really feel the land and learn the land just from a from a gut feel and emotional perspective. And that really helped drive the program and help drive our, our criteria to digital to say, hey, we really want this feels like, you know, more of a preserve.
00:25:28:29 - 00:25:53:19
Jesse Younger: Let's, let's preserve this for hiking, biking trails or let's this has a good lake view. Let's let's put something here. So learning the land was it was a huge a huge piece. Again, we already knew the community. We already know the neighbors very well. And also putting the putting the development into VR is something else that digital did that was really unique and really cool.
00:25:53:21 - 00:26:17:00
Jesse Younger: We went and bought an Oculus and were able to live in the finished development for hours upon hours, and it drove a lot of design changes and a lot of design decisions, you know, really, again, living in the development before it's even built, really fine tune the design and the technology's there, right? I mean, companies like, like digital, I can't say enough about them.
00:26:17:06 - 00:26:48:20
Jesse Younger: The way that they were able to make the make the design come alive so we could polish it this early on is is, to me, completely novel and innovative, the sun shading analysis. So, like I mentioned, we're pretty hot climate. We're next to Lake Travis, but we're not close enough. And so using the, the sun shading, using the prevailing winds to really make these spaces livable year round was another thing that we looked at.
00:26:48:22 - 00:27:12:05
Jesse Younger: And again, when you're modeling this in Google Earth, in 3D, you're able to do these things relatively easy. So this is the this animation is showing you the Hilltop Plaza. And you can see by by 2:00 in the afternoon. It's mostly shaded because of the way the buildings are masked in the way that they're, they're oriented.
00:27:12:07 - 00:27:36:10
Jesse Younger: The trees learning the trees was a big one. This is a one of our largest cedar elms on the property, working around existing oak trees and existing, existing vegetation like this is super important because we want this development to feel like it fits with the landscape, right? We want it to feel like it's a it's been there for a long time.
00:27:36:12 - 00:28:03:22
Jesse Younger: That was a big one. And then the airport. So as a recent pilot, this was a this is Lago Vista Airport, about a mile and a half from from the project. And as a pilot, I appreciate that the airport designers thought about prevailing winds. Right. The, the the runway 115 is 157 degrees magnetic from magnetic north because we want the winds to be blowing right down the runway when we land.
00:28:03:27 - 00:28:34:15
Jesse Younger: How much more? So do we want to feel the breeze when you're out in some of these common spaces on the property? So leaving leaving breeze ways and leaving open areas for when to travel through instead of get caught was another thing that we spent a lot of time thinking about. Rainwater, gray water, recycling, solar. Of course, you know, these are some things that we're working with, with Ferguson to look at the latest gray water recycling technologies to see if we can incorporate that rainwater and solar.
00:28:34:18 - 00:28:58:09
Jesse Younger: You know, right now every one of our homes is rainwater and solar ready. And about 50% of our semi-custom clients opt for us to put in the solar as well. Our area out here, PSC, is still relatively inexpensive, so the Roizen isn't quite there. The people opting for it are more are doing it more for the sustainability aspect of it.
00:28:58:10 - 00:29:30:15
Jesse Younger: Same with the rainwater. As I mentioned, specifications of the building themselves, not compromising on that either. Everything will be net zero ready and indoor air plus because we've done it. And to me it's like, why would you not? Locally sourced materials, native landscaping, embodied carbon. This is a this is a good one. Stacy Smedley and her group at Building Transparency have been a huge help to us.
00:29:30:17 - 00:29:44:16
Jesse Younger: Really understanding the carbon handprint of the entire project. I'll get into this more a little bit later with the with the building envelope, but the goal.
00:29:44:18 - 00:30:05:19
Jesse Younger: You measure what matters, right? And right now, embodied carbon is something that even if we can just measure for this entire development, if we can just measure it, we feel like that's going to be a push, a push for this initiative in the right direction. Right. And if we can help, help it drive some decisions, that's even that's even better.
00:30:05:21 - 00:30:29:21
Jesse Younger: But Stacy's been been great at helping us on the front end calculate some of this stuff. Education. This is a big one, too. And we alluded to this with the question already. So, this is this is our our personal home in Lago Vista, where we recently held a, a, a party to, to showcase Lago Place.
00:30:29:27 - 00:30:55:24
Jesse Younger: There was 70 people that came through. This is actually the mayor of Lago Vista. Walking through the development in, in VR and several posters and talking points throughout the home, talking about what it means to be sustainable, just educating people. And, amazing to see the reaction like what we're doing is not it's not new. It's new to the industry.
00:30:55:24 - 00:31:17:21
Jesse Younger: I feel like new to us, but it strikes a chord with people naturally. It's like, yeah, why? Why wouldn't you do that? Construction methods we talked about a little bit. I'll get into some more of this later about how we're really trying to push the envelope here. But bottom line has the development has to be successful, right.
00:31:17:22 - 00:31:38:17
Jesse Younger: Like this. This is not a a hobby. This is not, it's a lot like our home building business, right? We still need to build a. We can't just build an energy efficient, sustainable home like it has to be beautiful. Has to be high quality. It has to make sense from a cost efficiency perspective. Like it still needs to be successful.
00:31:38:17 - 00:32:00:01
Jesse Younger: And this is where leaning upon other other developers and other people who've done this before, is really important for us because we've we haven't done this before. And it's a it's a big thing to bite off, you know, and we have all these goals and unicorns and rainbows and ideas. But if it's not successful and it never breaks ground, what's kind of what's the point.
00:32:00:03 - 00:32:14:17
Jesse Younger: So we can't forget the practical side, that it also still has to be financially feasible and successful, that that to us is what makes a development sustainable.
00:32:14:19 - 00:32:22:00
Jesse Younger: Yeah, I think I think that's a good spot. I don't know if there's any other questions about this slide in particular. Mike.
00:32:22:02 - 00:32:40:22
Mike Collignon: Yep. I'm hopping back on here for you. So we do have a couple of questions that I was saving so you could get through some of these details. And you've actually hit on some of the the questions that we're asking you didn't even know about. So I'm going to skip over some of them. But.
00:32:40:25 - 00:33:19:06
Mike Collignon: There were and it's interesting to you, you were talking about air and wind currents. That was actually one of the questions was asked was that taking into consideration things like rainfall projections and your water conservation collection storage. So you detailed some of that. I'm thankful that you did that. So here's here's one that's a little bit out of left field, when you were factoring in all these different facets of the of the land, the property, the air, was there any thought towards migratory habits of animals?
00:33:19:08 - 00:33:22:13
Jesse Younger: Great question.
00:33:22:15 - 00:33:54:14
Jesse Younger: Naturally, where we're at, there are regulations already in place. There's been extensive environmental assessments already done in our area. So yes, by others and if not by others, it would have been done by us. But in our in our area specifically, the golden cheek warbler is one species that's been labeled as as endangered. And so we abide by the rules and regulations of that naturally.
00:33:54:14 - 00:34:00:09
Jesse Younger: And so this would be this would follow suit.
00:34:00:11 - 00:34:12:00
Mike Collignon: Very good, very good. Yeah. I'm just looking through the questions that have been sent in. You hit on the solar system.
00:34:12:03 - 00:34:31:01
Mike Collignon: And and water conservation collections. So I don't have any other questions right now, but I'll kind of repeat the call for questions is out there. We are going to be taking these throughout. So if you do have them please submit them via the questions box. And I'll be able to convey them on your behalf.
00:34:31:03 - 00:35:03:01
Jesse Younger: Yeah but that's a good that's a good point about just the migratory patterns. I think putting that as its own bullet point here is, is definitely something we need to do, because that was looked at and should be looked at, for sure. And it just it follows the theme, right? It follows the theme of who else going to be impacted by this and learn, learn, learn that that species learn that body learn that, learn that thing and what what the needs, wants and wishes of that thing are and then adapt.
00:35:03:01 - 00:35:06:11
Jesse Younger: The design is needed. Yeah, I like that.
00:35:06:13 - 00:35:12:18
Mike Collignon: Well, and I want to ask you a question of my own.
00:35:12:20 - 00:35:17:19
Mike Collignon: Talk to me about in your area.
00:35:17:21 - 00:35:45:29
Mike Collignon: What are you seeing in the building industry when it comes to this topic of electrification? You know, because, I mean, look, for those who aren't aware and I happen to interact with Danielle and Jesse a few times already. At one point, they both did work in the oil and gas industry. And I think most people know that in Texas, that is a very predominant industry, and it has historically been.
00:35:46:01 - 00:36:18:29
Mike Collignon: So I'm curious as to what you're seeing in the Lake Travis Austin area in regards to is there a movement towards electrification? Is there a movement away from natural gas, or is it because it's such a historically entrenched industry? Is there a great resistance to that?
00:36:19:01 - 00:36:23:20
Mike Collignon: There he is.
00:36:23:23 - 00:36:26:21
Jesse Younger: Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Okay.
00:36:26:24 - 00:36:31:02
Mike Collignon: Yep.
00:36:31:05 - 00:36:31:24
Mike Collignon: Go right ahead.
00:36:31:25 - 00:37:03:07
Jesse Younger: Okay. All right. Great. So my what we're seeing on the electrification front, I'll take it a step backwards to the energy efficient. Like our our energy star and our net zero. We've just recently seen a big push for the net zero. Ready? Like, this is the first time, I'd say, in the last two years since, I feel like Covid was, was was the catalyst or something during that era era.
00:37:03:10 - 00:37:06:24
Jesse Younger: But before it was like.
00:37:06:26 - 00:37:25:07
Jesse Younger: Was like, oh, you're a high quality builder. You know, you make beautiful products, you're trusting people. You have a great process. Oh, and by the way, you build energy efficient homes. That's that's great. It's almost like, you know, people buying Teslas because they go fast and they look cool. And oh, by the way, they're good for the environment.
00:37:25:08 - 00:37:44:05
Jesse Younger: You know, that's kind of what it was. But now people are really coming to us with that, with that in the forefront of their mind. I feel like electrification is where net zero ready was about two years ago for for us, where we have a few people who are, you know, maybe dabbling in the dual fuel ranges induction cooktop, but I don't really want to give up, you know, propane yet.
00:37:44:05 - 00:38:12:29
Jesse Younger: So let me just do dual fuel and then you talk with them afterwards and they're like, well, we actually never use the propane anyways. We always use the induction because it boils faster, cooks better and is better for indoor air quality, yada, yada, yada. One thing that I think will never go away with the with the, with the, with electrification movement is is fireplaces for us in Texas now we do direct vent for everything.
00:38:13:02 - 00:38:36:14
Jesse Younger: We don't do any, any natural wood burning fireplaces inside. We do them outside a lot. But, and the reason is, is because during the the shutdown of the grid, during the freeze, during Covid, having that dual fuel, that redundancy was super important for people and my family in particular, to just having, having having the fireplace available to keep the family warm.
00:38:36:16 - 00:38:55:29
Jesse Younger: It was also nice having propane water heaters, to boil water. Propane range to boil water. I mean, the redundancy of that and the resiliency of the dual fuel is something that in our area is still pretty pretty pretty raw and pretty meaningful to people.
00:38:56:01 - 00:39:02:19
Mike Collignon: Okay. Thank you sir. Let's go ahead and carry on and we'll take some more questions a little bit later.
00:39:02:24 - 00:39:24:13
Jesse Younger: Okay. Great. So before we jump into offsite, I did want to just give a well, let's jump in offsite. Let's do this because I know Sam's going to want to maybe talk through some of this. Okay. So again, previous slide, one of the big things that makes it our development sustainable, we feel like is the construction methods.
00:39:24:15 - 00:39:47:27
Jesse Younger: And considering offsite near site. And this was our big question when we presented this back at the international build show in Vegas a few months ago. This was our big ask to. Everybody was, hey, like, we need a subject matter expert in this area because it's such a for us, a new to us innovation that we need some guidance.
00:39:47:27 - 00:40:18:03
Jesse Younger: We need someone kind of shepherding along this this journey digital build has done a great job setting setting us up for success with with this piece. And now we're at the phase where finding that manufacturer and and we've narrowed it down to a handful of folks to kind of help get us to the finish line with this personally off site to me, is is where we need to be going from an engineering perspective.
00:40:18:04 - 00:40:47:03
Jesse Younger: Like I've worked for caterpillar, you know, Mitsubishi Forklift, I've seen Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing at their at their peak. Like it's it's a beautiful thing and the amount of flexible just all the all the pros that go along with it. That's one into my brain. But the other end of my brain comes from construction, you know, like growing up around ride my big wheel through remodel projects and, you know, that kind of thing.
00:40:47:04 - 00:41:18:06
Jesse Younger: Like, I also know that, we're still we still have guys out in the, in the elements measuring and cutting lumber with a a skill saw like that, that that's where we're at. There's such this big gap that, I feel like it's going to take incremental change to, to, to disrupt that, you know, like you can't just if we're on step one right now with this guy out there with a circle saw, you can't just go to step ten and you know, your first and last out.
00:41:18:06 - 00:41:42:11
Jesse Younger: Lean manufacturing, Six Sigma black belt type stuff like it has to be incremental change. Right. So finding it, finding a partner, finding a manufacturer who kind of gets that and who's not just coming out of engineering school and just going for going for broke. We need the practical, practical side, I think, to solve the problem.
00:41:42:13 - 00:42:15:01
Jesse Younger: Yeah, I'll stop there. I do, I do think that there's a serious labor problem going on right now, and I think the offside is really going to help solve that. You know, one of the things that I think I think as an industry, we're kind of shooting ourself in the foot a little bit with the labor. It's, you know, it's we talk through residential construction, you know, it's so antiquated and hasn't changed and 100 years and it's so.
00:42:15:04 - 00:42:46:09
Jesse Younger: But would you like to be a framer, you know, like, hey, high school graduate, you want to go to you want to learn, you want to come to our industry. It's like we're kind of talking out of both sides of our mouth. And so, and rightfully so. Like, like it is an antiquated it's not exciting. It's not there's no ping pong tables in the lobby, you know, and so having this manufactured facility, I think will invite this new, this next generation of labor and help solve a very serious and real and becoming worse problem that we have.
00:42:46:11 - 00:43:15:01
Jesse Younger: And again, since Covid, just the supply chain, supply chain issues, you know, talking with suppliers like Ferguson and Anderson who are really kind of on board with the project, the idea of having another wide spot in the line in addition to their their, you know, supply chain, having a white spot in the line for, for staging at a manufacturing facility, could also help solve a supply chain issue that I think is is more prevalent now.
00:43:15:03 - 00:43:36:25
Mike Collignon: And Jesse, I think, you know, we could bring Sam in on this too, because we talk about this a lot in housing 2.0. Sam, are you able to pop your camera back on real quick and and join us. He's currently Muted so.
00:43:36:28 - 00:44:01:01
Sam Rashkin: Okay good. Now unmuted yeah I'd love I love what Jesse and Danielle are doing which is there a problem. And trying to skate to where the puck is going not where it is now. Remember the famous Wayne Gretzky answer to the question how he scored so many goals in the National Hockey League, and so you don't have to do offside right now.
00:44:01:01 - 00:44:32:09
Sam Rashkin: But my goodness, you need to be giving it really careful consideration. There's a nominee of retiring construction workers. There's a dearth of new entries into construction. There's supply chain issues along the way that are leaving gaps in training and qualifications of these workers. The costs, their waste, the amount of challenges with construction working, construction work with trades is just not going to go away.
00:44:32:11 - 00:44:56:03
Sam Rashkin: It's over 90% in surveys of a prominent issue with with the industry. So Jesse's points real important that, you know, you got to look at it, but it may not be the answer. My key point for everyone is this, though often it will not be the answer because it's not fully integrated from the very, very first beginning of the design process.
00:44:56:04 - 00:45:25:19
Sam Rashkin: If you really want to get faster, better, cheaper, which offsite can do in spades, and with a risk reduction for the builder, it has to be your strategy. From the very first line you draw on the design concept process. It has to be because there are a number of constraints. For sure. With offsite, he will have no impact on your design, will be just as effective and as compelling a user experience solution.
00:45:25:19 - 00:45:58:07
Sam Rashkin: But if you adapt to the process, it's amazing what happens. And secondly, if you do true cost accounting, if you actually account for the all the myriad of interrelated parts and effects of offsite to save cost and improve performance, improve quality, improved design, things like, let's say with CIPs having dimensional accuracy, having solid walls that feel stronger, having complete comfort because of having like a Yeti cooler kind of enclosure around the occupants.
00:45:58:12 - 00:46:26:10
Sam Rashkin: There are so many factors that just don't get counted in a bidding comparison between a traditional framing and some advanced offsite option, but you're not going to get the outcomes if you don't do two things integrate in the very first steps of your design. And secondly, give yourself a chance to get past the learning curve. Electricians may balk at first using something again like SIPs until they do it once and realize it's easier.
00:46:26:12 - 00:46:44:15
Sam Rashkin: People may balk at just the doing something new, or having to just frame the interior walls when they don't get to frame the exterior walls. It's a process. You're going to have to learn how to integrate offsite, but if you don't get there now and get ahead of the rest of the industry, you'll be there trying to catch up.
00:46:44:15 - 00:46:57:23
Sam Rashkin: As the not gets tighter and tighter with all the challenges that traditional framing provides. So that's just my $0.02 and Jesse's important comments.
00:46:57:25 - 00:47:20:15
Jesse Younger: Yeah, and I think doing it early is the key. I mean, we're talking to manufacturers right now, and we're not even through 100% through the entitlement phase, you know. But and that seems like I feel like before we jumped into this, it was like, man, do we really need to be talking to how we're going to be building the sticks and bricks, but before we even submit a zoning application?
00:47:20:15 - 00:48:04:19
Jesse Younger: And the answer is yes, like we we've had to put in and with the help of the manufacturers, we've had to put in language in the developer's agreement with the city that says, here's how you're going to inspect the buildings, like, here's how we want to deviate from your normal process. And by putting that these waivers and variances up front and making that making that known right now is going to make it a whole lot easier that down the line, you know, let him know up front this is how we want to build and giving us that that window to to do so, in addition to the schematic designs and designing for this mass customization.
00:48:04:20 - 00:48:27:08
Jesse Younger: Right. I mean, again, not new, but just new to our industry. You know, for example, an automotive industry, the the starter for the SUV of our GMC's SUV is the same starter that's used on my GMC truck. Like we're able to achieve a number of.
00:48:27:11 - 00:48:53:27
Jesse Younger: Repeatable products or subassemblies, but just by putting them together in a different manner, we're able to achieve more skew numbers or different products that the customer sees, right? So an example for this would be for all products that we have on the 19 acres, we might have two powder rooms or five kitchens or three master bathrooms across all the products.
00:48:53:29 - 00:49:18:01
Jesse Younger: And so again, you get a lot of this repeatability that makes offsite construction, this manufactured mentality possible, this repeatability, this predictability. But the end result to the user is completely different. And I think that that's that's the mentality that we're trying to take to this. And again, like like Sam said, we make it to the end of this and it might be like, man, it's just not there yet, you know?
00:49:18:07 - 00:49:36:04
Jesse Younger: But I want to a deliverable for us personally is to say, well, specifically why? Like what? This is where we need to go. So if it's not there yet. Let's do a gap analysis and see what needs to happen. So this can be achievable for the next development. It's got to get there. So this is this is if nothing else it's going to be a research paper and abstract.
00:49:36:04 - 00:49:50:11
Jesse Younger: And we want to share our learnings from that.
00:49:50:13 - 00:50:14:11
Jesse Younger: Yeah we alluded to this earlier to just looking at the different options we're looking at. And again there's a lot of a lot of design criteria that we're looking at at this point. You know, from, from, from many different angles, from off site perspective angle from a obviously still a dollar and constructive perspective. But now there's an a body carbon variable as well that we're looking at.
00:50:14:13 - 00:50:30:23
Jesse Younger: And so really on the front end starting to look at what is our what is our our wall assembly going to look like as it relates to these different design criteria that that are priorities to us.
00:50:30:25 - 00:50:40:07
Jesse Younger: Let me let me I'll stop there. And I know we have less than ten minutes left. What maybe maybe some questions or more conversation.
00:50:40:09 - 00:51:05:23
Mike Collignon: Yeah. Jesse. So here's the question that came in from Greg. And I think it's kind of looking for a little bit of a clarification. He's curious, are you targeting net zero energy or net zero carbon? I mean, you and I just talked a little bit about electrification and that viewpoint for the region there. But like he's curious about your heating systems are the electric heat pump or the fossil fuel furnaces.
00:51:05:25 - 00:51:13:25
Mike Collignon: So is it necessary energy net zero carbon? Is it both that you're trying to target here? Can you just provide a little bit of clarification on that.
00:51:13:27 - 00:51:40:08
Jesse Younger: Net net zero ready for sure. If we can achieve net zero out of the gate that's that's even better with the PV systems or things like that. That'd be fantastic. But net zero ready for sure. From a carbon perspective for for us personally, just again, just measuring the carbon, and using it to make decisions from a, from a prescriptive approach.
00:51:40:11 - 00:52:00:21
Jesse Younger: Right. So if we're looking at HVAC systems and here's the different carbon, it might drive prescriptive decisions. I feel like it's a little too much for us to give a performance number to say, we're achieving. We're going for this, at least at this point. We might put one out there just as an arbitrary number, just just for a goal.
00:52:00:21 - 00:52:13:12
Jesse Younger: But for now, just measuring and using it to make prescriptive decisions to me is it is huge for us.
00:52:13:15 - 00:52:32:19
Mike Collignon: And then we had a question I was going to saving for near the end. It came in from Katie. What did you think might be your biggest challenge in making this vision come to life, and has that actually been the case?
00:52:32:21 - 00:52:32:29
Jesse Younger: Oh.
00:52:32:29 - 00:52:35:13
Jesse Younger: That's a good one.
00:52:35:15 - 00:52:43:26
Jesse Younger: Geez.
00:52:43:28 - 00:52:49:11
Jesse Younger: I might yeah.
00:52:49:14 - 00:53:15:01
Jesse Younger: No, this is good. This is good. I might get a little philosophical here, but here we go. Just. I feel like it's ourself. I mean, I feel like we're our own, I'm a very, very logical spreadsheet person, and, like, anything like this, like, you have to have. You have to believe in something bigger than yourself. Like, I mean, for us, it's it's God.
00:53:15:02 - 00:53:45:23
Jesse Younger: Right? So if it's like conditional formatting, this spreadsheet cell says it's a read. And logically this is a dumb decision. Don't do it. But man, in my gut I just know this is this is this is going to do it. You know, this is it. Pray about it and you just you go for it. And if you can just constantly give up that that part of yourself over and over and over, it's crazy to see just how, like, looking back, how what we've been able to accomplish.
00:53:45:25 - 00:53:57:12
Jesse Younger: It's. Yeah, I would say dying to yourself on a regular basis. Yeah. That's been the hardest part.
00:53:57:14 - 00:54:22:04
Mike Collignon: And, you know, I know that you had the chance. And, Danielle, you've had the chance to speak at a number of events. Now, you mentioned the builder show. I know I saw you out at Ebor last fall. What's been the response? Well, you know, when when I'm not talking about identifying specific people, but you talk about this.
00:54:22:08 - 00:54:44:03
Mike Collignon: What's been the response to people coming to you afterwards? What are those kind of one on one conversations? Are are people interested in it? Are they gong ho and like, yes about this or are they kind of skeptical? I'm curious to see like when it's just the one on ones, what the feedback is that you're getting from from builders who attend your talks?
00:54:44:05 - 00:55:15:00
Jesse Younger: It's over. Overjoyed. If I could bottle up those conversations and use them for motivation down the line, I could and I would, yeah. Just overjoyed. And again, this strikes such a chord just on such a human level. I feel like it's it's a. Yeah, very, very it's very moving for people. There are, there are, you know, the, the old crusty builders, you know like man, you're, there's a lot of topography there and you're all in solid rock out there and your civil costs are going to be this, this and that.
00:55:15:00 - 00:55:35:12
Jesse Younger: And like, yeah, you're probably right. But well when it's, it's, it's not a problem until it's a problem. And until then we're going to keep going. So but I feel like there's, there's been an overwhelming amount of support on this for sure. Just because it, it feels so right from a human level, from where industry is right now.
00:55:35:12 - 00:55:43:19
Jesse Younger: Level it just the potential energy is there. So that's the feeling that we get. Yeah.
00:55:43:22 - 00:56:07:12
Mike Collignon: Well I've always gotten the sense from talking with you and Danielle that there's a certain element of legacy to this, you know, to your company of, hey, we're putting our name on this and we want to put something that our kids kids will be proud of someday.
00:56:07:15 - 00:56:24:29
Jesse Younger: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think given and just given a platform, I mean, looking at this, this slide right now and just thinking about all the people who've come alongside us and this list continues to grow and giving them an opportunity to just people want to contribute. People want to be part of something bigger than themselves in the day to day.
00:56:25:00 - 00:56:33:06
Jesse Younger: And this project has the potential to do that. Yeah. To be a legacy for so many.
00:56:33:08 - 00:56:41:11
Mike Collignon: Kim wanted to ask about your timeline. Are you selling now, or can I talk a little bit about the timeline for this development?
00:56:41:14 - 00:57:11:20
Jesse Younger: Good question. John McLendon a digital would say, yes, we're selling we're taking preorders today because he's my he's my he's he's he's my mentor. My my fatherly words of wisdom on this project for sure. But yeah, our timeline again is very, very loose. But the idea is that we get through entitlements and maybe through construction documents this year and get ready to start breaking ground on horizontals next, next year.
00:57:11:23 - 00:57:14:16
Jesse Younger: Yeah.
00:57:14:19 - 00:57:15:25
Jesse Younger: Okay.
00:57:15:27 - 00:57:22:10
Mike Collignon: All right. Well, I don't see any other questions right now.
00:57:22:13 - 00:57:36:01
Mike Collignon: How can people get Ahold of you if they do have other questions? Because we have people who watch the recording later, so they may see this and listen to this and go, oh, I'd love to ask Jesse this or that. How they reach out to you.
00:57:36:04 - 00:58:06:09
Jesse Younger: Shoot. Shoot me an email. I think Danielle put our Instagram handle at the beginning at Younger Homes. Our website younger Dash homes. Younger hyphen homes. Com but yeah, my email is just my first name Jessie J SC at Younger homes reach out our our next big. Our next big ask is you know the manufacturing piece. I feel like we've narrowed it down to a handful of folks.
00:58:06:11 - 00:58:25:05
Jesse Younger: Our next big piece is going to be capital, you know, looking looking for that person. Because while we funded this ourself up to this point, it's quickly getting to the point where once we get through entitlement phase, the big, big money is going to start flowing. And we're just a young family. So we're going to need some some deep pockets to help, help, help keep this going.
00:58:25:06 - 00:58:29:25
Jesse Younger: So that'll be the next big partnership we're looking for.
00:58:29:27 - 00:58:53:25
Mike Collignon: Gotcha. All right. Well, Jesse, really appreciate the time and the insight today and kind of this vision of what you guys are working on down there and really do appreciate you coming on. And I know that, you know, Sam was with us here and he's been a huge fan of yours for a long time. And I know he was excited to have you on here.
00:58:53:25 - 00:58:56:04
Mike Collignon: So thank you very much.
00:58:56:06 - 00:59:04:05
Jesse Younger: Man thank thank you guys for for what you do here. And then behind the scenes to y'all. Support has been unmatched. It's been great.
00:59:04:07 - 00:59:30:27
Mike Collignon: I want to thank also our audience for asking the wonderful questions that they did, and also to our wonderful sponsors, to Mitsubishi Electric, to to Schneider Electric, to Panasonic, Healthy Indoor Living Solutions, Gingko Solar and LP Building Solutions for the generous sponsorship of the housing 2.0 program. And if you enjoyed today's webinar and you'd like to learn more about the housing 2.0 strategies that we discussed here, you can register now for the series two workshops.
00:59:30:27 - 00:59:43:24
Mike Collignon: Those are online and they are six parts. And they will begin in mid-October and simply go to Green Builder Media.
00:59:43:26 - 01:00:05:16
Mike Collignon: To learn more. And also to register, you get to hang out with Sam and myself for six different sessions. Now you say, hey, maybe I'm not sure about that yet. That's okay. We've got another Thought Leader webinar coming up, just like this one. It's going to be on June 28th and it's going to be with Josh Christian, who's with the Home Technology Association.
01:00:05:16 - 01:00:16:06
Mike Collignon: And we'll start at our usual time at 2 p.m. eastern. Until next time, I want to make sure to wish a Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there and stay safe, stay healthy and take care everyone so long.