Today I’m talking with Nick Fanelli, the Business
Development Manager for Pleasant Valley Homes in
Modcoach: Nick, you have had an interesting path to your
current position. Would you share your background with my readers?
Nick: My family has been in the factory-built housing
industry for over thirty years, so you might say I’ve grown up in the
business. I began my career as an attorney, principally representing
financially-distressed, medium-sized businesses as they weathered the economic
downturn that began in 2008. During my time practicing law, I remained
involved in the industry as a number of new federal and state laws and
regulations concerning mortgage licensing, codes adoption and other matters
came into focus. In late 2013, I joined
on a full-time basis.
Modcoach: I understand that Pleasant Valley Homes has seen
an uptick in business from the rebuilding after Hurricane Sandy. Is this going
to be an important factor in the next few years?
Nick: Hurricane
a meaningful increase in business for us in the coastal regions of
Jersey
many factories, we developed a series of home plans specifically for coastal
regions in response to the growing demand for new homes in areas devastated by
strong demand as a result of
for a number of years, as homebuyers’ re-construction funds are accumulated and
permit backlogs are eased.
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| Pleasant Valley Home in Brick, NJ |
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| Pleasant Valley home in Lavallette, NJ |
Modcoach: Your company has gone above just saying they offer
green and energy saving options, you’ve actually got something unique to offer
your builders.
Nick: Yes we have.
One of the ways that we’ve attempted to differentiate our homes are by
using environmentally responsible building components and offering our
customers energy-efficient choices. One
such option is our Energy Wall, which increases the insulation value of the
exterior wall from R-21 to R-27, without increasing the stud dimension. The Energy Wall uses a combination of
traditional batt insulation and reflective insulation to resist all three types
of heat transfer (conduction, convection, and – most importantly –
radiant).
Modcoach: Because of your location in the heart of the Mid-Atlantic
region, has the cost of shipping your homes had any impact on the builder’s
cost?
Nick: Excluding homes destined for New England and
while increasing, aren’t hurting sales.
For homes that need to be shipped north (and east) of New York state,
the loss of the participation by
and
Transportation Consortium has drastically increased freight costs to (and
through ) those states, which in turn has hurt our sales in New England and
Modcoach: Are you getting more involved in social media such
as Facebook and Pinterest?
Nick: Yes, the value of social media in business seems to
continue to grow quickly. We use our
Facebook page to share photos of new products, new options, home sets,
completed homes, and information about our factory Open Houses, which are held
once per month at our factory campus in
Grove
Modcoach: Nick, lately I’ve been writing about state codes
and regulations and the effects they are having on our industry. Have codes and
regulations been hurting our industry?
Nick: Absolutely. The
easy example is
where the industry as a whole is at a disadvantage. On multiple occasions, we’ve lost sales
because the homebuyer either emphatically resisted the installation and
maintenance of a sprinkler system, or turned to a stick builder in order to
save the cost of a sprinkler system. More generally, substantial and costly
code changes over the past decade have added a lot of cost to new home
construction, which makes building a new home less affordable or, at worst,
unaffordable. The evidence is in the
number of first-time home buyers effectively excluded from the market. Everyone concurs in the virtue of building
better houses, but it must be done incrementally and with an increased focus on
the unintended consequence and cost of new codes.
Nick, thank you for an interesting conversation. I wish you
and Pleasant Valley Homes continued growth and success in the years to come.
