Now that the Spring Parade of Homes is coming to an end, Thom is excited to share some of his favorite features that he saw in the houses! Following that up, is Ron Wieczorek from Flagstar Bank talking about flipping homes and home renovations.

We have a special guest from Indie Dwell for the second half of the show! Scott Flynn is here to tell us about his company and the container homes that they build. “Indie Dwell constructs high quality, sustainable, modular housing at extremely affordable prices in order to solve today's massive housing crisis.”


Segment 1

Dave Burnett: This is the Idaho Real Estate Buzz, he is Thom Dallman, the co-owner, also one of the associate brokers, at Core Group at eXp Realty. CoreGroupRealty.com, that's a website you can always go to, or call 208-933-7777. Thom, another great weekend. It's the final weekend for the parade of homes.

Thom Dallman: Yes it is. Final weekend. Make sure you get out if you are out and about. Happy Mother's Day to all of those mothers out there as well for this weekend. It's a great weekend to get out, go see some of these beautiful homes. We actually-

Dave Burnett: - do that.

Thom Dallman: Yes. We actually did our eighth annual, this is our eighth year in a row that we did this, but we did our bus tour. We rented a bus, our agents piled in with their significant others or friends, and we went and toured. We ended up getting about 10 houses in.

Dave Burnett: That's pretty good.

Thom Dallman: Over a three hour time frame. Yeah. Fortunately, three of those were all together so we got more than we expected, but some amazing stuff out there. Some really amazing and beautiful homes.

Dave Burnett: You showed me pictures of something that you really liked and very-

Thom Dallman: I'm obsessed with this.

Dave Burnett: What was it you liked?

Thom Dallman: Everyone thinks I'm crazy for being obsessed with this, but.

Dave Burnett: What was it that you loved?

Thom Dallman: One of ... It's Northern Construction's home in SpurWing. They had put their electrical sockets ... You know how you kind of have your electrical socket in the middle of your wall kind of hanging out there, never blends in, people have gone to far lengths to try to decorate them and paint them the same as the wall to make them blend in. They actually went and put those electrical sockets, as well as the central vac plugins on the trim.

Dave Burnett: In the baseboard.

Thom Dallman: Built into the baseboard of the trim and stuff like that. So completely, or it blends in, with the trim. It's low so you don't have ... You know when you plug in a lamp, you have that cord hanging down the wall?

Dave Burnett: You don't have that.

Thom Dallman: You don't have that. It fascinated me, and I thought, "What a great concept. I've never seen any builder do this before." We kind of talked about it on the bus a little bit because I imagine that the measurements and getting everything just right for that trim and cutting the hole out on the trim is a lot more time intensive than just being able to just cut out drywall and fitting your electrical socket, or electrical plugins.

Dave Burnett: After you showed me those pictures, I started thinking. I have seen that before.

Thom Dallman: Oh you have?

Dave Burnett: Yes. I lived in Corvallis when I went to school, and I lived in a home at that time that was built in the 1900s, like 1925, an older home, and they had the outlets in the baseboard.

Thom Dallman: Oh, interesting.

Dave Burnett: Which I thought at the time, you know as a college student, "that's really goofy."

Thom Dallman: Maybe I just don't pay attention enough to, and just like saw it for the first time.

Dave Burnett: Maybe it's something that was done a long time ago and somebody's going back to. I don't know.

Thom Dallman: Yeah, I imagine that just with the way that builders kind of just traditionally kind of do things and stuff like that, it just became natural to just put it on the wall in places.

Dave Burnett: It might be easy.

Thom Dallman: And it takes a lot more designing and knowing your space and stuff like that to put it into the baseboards like that, but I found it fascinating. I don't know why. I was just obsessed with it.

Dave Burnett: Parade of homes going on this weekend, the final weekend. So get out and do that.

Thom Dallman: I believe it's noon to eight on Saturdays and Sundays.

Dave Burnett: Git-r-done.

Thom Dallman: Make sure you get out and see some of these beautiful homes. Definitely worth taking your mom out and showing her some of the beauty that's out there that the builders are doing.

Dave Burnett: It's also a great time to buy and sell a home.

Thom Dallman: Oh yeah, it is.

Dave Burnett: Core Group, you've had some interesting stories.

Thom Dallman: We've got some great success selling homes. Just recently, I had a listing that we got an offer on the first day, we went through the weekend, we ended up with five offers for them to, for our sellers to review. We had another listing that just came on this week that had eight offers on the first day. One day on the market, and they had eight offers. So sold very quickly.

Dave Burnett: Way to put pressure on the sellers and.

Thom Dallman: I know, right.

Dave Burnett: ... right away.

Thom Dallman: I know, right? It's kind of a little stressful, but-

Dave Burnett: It's a good problem, though.

Thom Dallman: It just goes to show that if you're priced correctly and you have that curb appeal and everything, homes will sell quickly and stuff, so.

Dave Burnett: And really good financing's still available-

Thom Dallman: Very good financing.

Dave Burnett: ... up here in a minute.

Thom Dallman: Yeah. Buyers can still get a really good interest rate right now, and the qualification process is still pretty easy and affordable. So it's a great time to buy.

Dave Burnett: And I will pitch this for you, Thom, it is a great time to list your home. Core Group would love to list your home.

Thom Dallman: Yes, we would.

Dave Burnett: Because they're at a premium. Listings that are premium, and they'd love to talk to you about it and ... give them the chance to make that offer to get your home sold.

Thom Dallman: Exactly.

Dave Burnett: A new one that you have.

Thom Dallman: And even if you just are curious about the value, we do free no-obligation market analysis for you to see the valuation. We have a new tool on our site, too, to do a home evaluation, that can update you every 90 days if you want and let you know, kind of keep tabs on what your home value is. So we have great opportunities there for people to kind of keep tabs and watch the market. So if anything shifts, you're ready to ... and you want to sell before it shifts, we can help you with that.

Dave Burnett: So give Thom or any one of the agents a call at Core Group, 208-933-7777.

Thom Dallman: Yep.

Dave Burnett: New listing you have this week?

Thom Dallman: Yeah, we have a new listing. It's 4583 North Dustod Ave. That's D-U-S-T-O-D Avenue in Meridian. This is just off of McMillan and Linder area. It's a great three bedroom, two and a half bath, two story house. 1700 square feet with a two car garage. Listed at $287,500. So a great price point. It's on a corner lot so you have that ... You don't have that neighbors all around you feel.

Yeah, exactly. The kitchen is gorgeous, open, open floor space with granite countertops, large pantry, hardwood floors. It's a great opportunity for those people who like to entertain in this house. Master suite's super spacious, a large walk-in closet, dual vanities, and so forth. So a must see if you are in the market and looking for a house in Meridian.

Dave Burnett: What's the address again?

Thom Dallman: It's 4583 North Dustod Ave, and it's in the Arch Rock Terrace Subdivision.

Dave Burnett: There you go. Perfect. So check that out at CoreGroupRealty.com. That'll be on the featured listing page?

Thom Dallman: Yep, featured listings on CoreGroupRealty.com. So just go there, you'll see all of our current listings that are available and see if there might be something that you're interested in. Give us a call. We have agents standing by who can show you these properties as well as get you out to see any of the properties out there.

Dave Burnett: And with school just a couple weeks left of school, two or three weeks, it's good to get ... Real estate will get very busy.

Thom Dallman: Oh, it's already getting busy.

Dave Burnett: -that time of year when people go, "Kids will be out of school. We need to upgrade, we need to get bigger. We need to downgrade, get smaller."

Thom Dallman: Yep.

Dave Burnett: It is the time to do it, and the folks at Core Group Realty at eXp are willing to help you do that.

Going to talk to Ron. Also going to be with Flagstar Bank here in a minute, but some funding about different things that are available and not available out there, and we have a special guest coming up as well.

Thom Dallman: Oh gosh yes, I'm so excited to talk to Scott Flynn from IndieDwell. They are a storage container business. They actually make homes out of storage containers so.

Dave Burnett: It's not your mom and dad's storage container anymore.

Thom Dallman: Yep, correct. I got to tour their facilities a month or two ago, and I just was fascinated, and I'm so happy to actually have him come in and talk about the business and what that takes and stuff.

Dave Burnett: We'll talk to him coming up as well. It's the Idaho Real Estate Buzz being brought to you by the folks at Flagstar Bank and Core Group at eXP Realty. CoreGroupRealty.com, the website. 208-933-7777. Find out why they say, "You get more with Core."

Segment 2

Dave Burnett: This is the Idaho Real Estate Buzz. He is Thom Dallman, the co-owner, associate broker at Core Group @ eXp realty, CoreGroupRealty.com, that is the website. (208) 933-7777 that is the phone number to call, and Thom, each and every week we get a chance to talk to Ron at Flagstar.

Thom Dallman: One of our favorite lenders.

Dave Burnett: Flagstar bank, right?

Ron Wieczorek: It is Flagstar bank, yes.

Dave Burnett: It is, but you're the realty division, or the-

Ron Wieczorek: The retail division.

Dave Burnett: The retail division, okay. Because-

Ron Wieczorek: It's the best of both worlds. It's a hybrid because we get all the products that a bank has available to them and the pricing that a bank gets to them, but the ability to do loans and the underwriting and processing that our retail arm gets so-

Dave Burnett: Nice.

Ron Wieczorek: We have the best of both worlds now.

Dave Burnett: Cool. You know something, you're an equal opportunity lender, by the way. I need to say that to keep within the guidelines, but where are you located? If somebody wanted to stop by and say, "hey"?

Ron Wieczorek: Well, right now we're in transition. We're at the Village Mall. So we're in one of those Regis offices. But ask me again in another four or five weeks and I’ll have an answer for you.

Dave Burnett: Nice.

Thom Dallman: Well just like us because we're in the transition phase too, so we'll be closing down Core Group offices, they're on Emerald, and looking for a new space as well, So we're right there with you.

Ron Wieczorek: It's exciting time.

Thom Dallman: Exactly.

Dave Burnett: But the radio show right here where we always are.

Thom Dallman: Yes.

Dave Burnett: Not moving a bit. And Ron you wanted to, we were talking during the break that you wanted to open up and talk a little bit about flipping homes.

Ron Wieczorek: Flipping... Well I'm going to start with flipping just a couple of stats on what that looks like now in the United States as far as, and those numbers are down.

Dave Burnett: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Ron Wieczorek: Home flipping has become less and less, maybe not popular, but lucrative, probably because the lack of inventory, you know, after 2008 it was, there was so much inventory that was leftover from foreclosures and bank owned properties, that some of them were left in a huge mess. And you know, those tenants didn't take care of them when they knew they were vacating, and even those owners didn't take care of them as they were vacating and left a lot to be desired. So a lot of investors with money came in and, and start flipping homes and year after year that has become less of a, with home prices going up, and then mortgage rates had gone up after the 2016 election. That even made that less popular because now you're looking at your return on investment and saying, what can I really flip this house for?

So I kind of track some of those numbers and there was a 4% reduction in flipping from 2018 or 2017 to 2018 and the profits were down 3%. In 2017 the average profit on flipping a home was about a $67,000, and it's down below 65 now, and that's after they sit on it long enough and do the improvements. So I guess my big topic with that is, and I'm going to transition into where renovations are becoming more popular, as opposed to the home flipping piece of it, but there are still some metro areas that are still struggling. Boise is not one of them.

Dave Burnett: Not one of them?

Ron Wieczorek: Not one of them, but there's of the 53 metros, the average for how many flips are in your area is less than 5%, and then you have places like Memphis that are still struggling, that's nearly 12% of the home. So there's still, there's opportunities in places like that. Phoenix is at nine, Vegas's near eight, Tampa's eight and Birmingham, Alabama is a little over seven and a half.

Dave Burnett: Interesting. All southern locations.

Ron Wieczorek: Yes. And there's ton of opportunities still there, so-

Thom Dallman: So if you want to be a home flipper, you need to go south.

Ron Wieczorek: Yeah, you need to go south.

Dave Burnett: Head to Beale Street in Memphis.

Thom Dallman: Exactly.

Ron Wieczorek: Go to some of the sands states.

Thom Dallman: We talked about this a little while back because we still have investors and people who are kind of taking these investment classes and and whatnot here locally that reach out to us every so often, and unfortunately, you know, it's just not the market. I think the last time I looked at our numbers, less than 1% of our homes were actually in that distressed situation where they were either foreclosed on short sale or whatnot, and so yeah, there's just not the opportunities right now in, in the Boise Metro area.

Ron Wieczorek: And you have to be careful when you see some of those stats because you'll see some, sometimes you'll see a stat that says pre-foreclosure.

Thom Dallman: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Ron Wieczorek: And all that means is they may be 30 day late on a payment. They can recover from that, right?

Thom Dallman: Exactly.

Ron Wieczorek: So a lot of people, "well, this many houses are pre foreclosure". I was like, "don't get jaded by that". That just means that maybe there was a rough month, maybe someone couldn't make bills meet, and they were expecting the tax return check or something, maybe family help they're going to get out of that, odds are. It doesn't always happen, but more often than not, those pre-foreclosures go away because they get caught back up, so that number, even, it's like the unemployment number versus the under underemployment number, you get into that whole conversation, so it's not, it's even less than maybe that we see on a daily basis.

So you're right, the point of that story is there's still opportunity out there for home flipping. It's not in our area, it's not out West. Phoenix is the closest place we're in. Go south, my friend, go south.

Thom Dallman: Go south.

Dave Burnett: Head to the warmer weather. What else you got for us, Ron?

Ron Wieczorek: So with that being said, I think it was a good transition to talk about renovation, so along with house flipping is usually renovations. Usually they're doing something to improve the property to make it a house. You just don't buy a house and then three months later sell it the same condition that you have it in, and all of a sudden you have a profit. That can happen-

Thom Dallman: That did happen.

Ron Wieczorek: It can happen.

Thom Dallman: Back in 2008.

Ron Wieczorek: Right. That's not the, that's not the premise of a home flip. So usually, there's renovations involved, and today's home buyer are being more open minded when it comes to home choices and renovations and 52, there was a survey that I read recently, and 52% of those interviewed, were considering something that needs work when they buy a house. So you might, Thom might have people going around buying a home and they're saying, "well it needs a couple of renovations" and their mind is open to it maybe more than it was a year or two ago, just because we do see that tighten up of inventory. Would you agree with that?

Thom Dallman: I would totally agree with it. And people are, yeah, a lot more willing to move into a house that may need a couple things done.

Ron Wieczorek: And what's an outside factor that sparking that, it's not just the low inventory, this intrigues me, is social media plays a part in that too, and media in general plays a part in that because you see these, those home renovation TV shows-

Thom Dallman: Oh yes.

Ron Wieczorek: It gets people thinking. They're like, "I can do that. That that seems fun". Pinterest is a big one. A lot of potential home buyers are like, "oh, I saw that idea on Pinterest, I can do that". And Instagram's another one where they kind of get all these creative juices flowing and say, now I don't check in six months later to see what actually happened, but they are definitely open to those home renovations more than they were before, and that leads me to my kind of, my next point is what is the most bang for your buck? Because most people when they do home renovations or try to get their house ready to sell, and you probably see this a lot Thom as though you know, if you break up in percentages, most people go to the kitchen first, kitchen, bathrooms, and then wood flooring is third and that's all, 30% go to the kitchen.

Thom Dallman: Sure.

Ron Wieczorek: And that's probably the most expensive.

Dave Burnett: That was going to say the kitchen-

Thom Dallman: One of the most expensive.

Dave Burnett: Having been through that, not cheap.

Ron Wieczorek: Not cheap, and it does improve the value of your house. I'm not going to say it doesn't improve the value of the house, but you're not going to get a one for one out of that deal. So if you're doing a huge kitchen remodel, if you're doing a huge bathroom remodel, and it's costing you a lot of money, just, if you poured 70 grand into it, that doesn't mean your house went up by 70.

Thom Dallman: Exactly.

Ron Wieczorek: You're not going to get that bang for your buck. Where do you think these-

Thom Dallman: We always tell people that like, make sure you consult with the real estate agent to check the area and check out what homes are selling for that have the granite countertops and the new hardwood floors and stuff to make sure that you're investing appropriately with what your house is going to sell for.

Ron Wieczorek: Now if you're saying, "I'm staying there for 20 years and I just like the way it looks", then go ahead [inaudible] invest in your home and just know that at the end of the day it's not going to pencil out. Where do you think you do get the most bang for your buck?

Thom Dallman: Well, I've kind of thrown this out in a couple of episodes or segments here, but I usually say either a garage door or front door is usually kind of one of the biggest bangs for your buck to upgrade the look of the house and the the curb appeal of the house-

Dave Burnett: I was going to say that instant curb-

Thom Dallman: It's inexpensive, but it's instant curb appeal.

Ron Wieczorek: If Thom could see my face, I don't know why I'm disappointed that a real estate professional that I trust knows the answer this.

Dave Burnett: Why would you be disappointed about that?

Ron Wieczorek: Like when I throw a question out there, I don't expect you to answer all the time. I'm not disappointed-

Thom Dallman: You're saying you wanted me to fail this quiz-

Ron Wieczorek: No, I never want you to fail, Thom, but you're 100%. Garage doors, front doors are huge, and then another one that keeps popping up are patios. If you do some renovations to your patio, and I don't know if it's called a renovation at that point, but anything outside of the home, outside of a pool, when you add a pool on-

Thom Dallman: Nope.

Ron Wieczorek: That's a money thing.

Dave Burnett: We've talked about that in the past.

Thom Dallman: That's a number one fea-

Ron Wieczorek: You'd better want a pool.

Thom Dallman: You want to live in the house for-

Ron Wieczorek: You'd better like to swim.

Thom Dallman: Yeah.

Dave Burnett: Yeah.

Ron Wieczorek: But outside of that, you're 100% right. It's exactly-

Dave Burnett: Well, think about it though, if you pull up to a house and the garage door is kind of falling off, you instantly have judged the house.

Ron Wieczorek: Yeah.

Dave Burnett: You know the house could be spectacular, but I would imagine Thom, you've run into people went, "Nah, don't even want to see it".

Thom Dallman: Yup, Yup, Yup. Definitely pulled up to people's houses where my clients have been like, "yeah, no, the exterior of this house just looks like it's way too much maintenance", that could be remodeled on the inside, beautiful on the inside, and they just don't care.

Ron Wieczorek: Right. Don't judge a book by its cover.

Thom Dallman: Yeah, exactly.

Ron Wieczorek: Well, we judge books by their cover on a daily basis.

Dave Burnett: Yes, we do.

Thom Dallman: We're just that kind of society.

Dave Burnett: Front doors, garage doors.

Ron Wieczorek: Garage doors, patios, even those outdoor kitchens, if done, you know, it depends how much you spend on it.

Thom Dallman: Yeah.

Ron Wieczorek: Just anything that improves. I've seen, not so much just a fire pit cause you can just go buy one of those at home depot, but like maybe like a-

Dave Burnett: Built in.

Thom Dallman: Enclosed grill and stuff like that.

Ron Wieczorek: Built in, right. Exactly. Yeah. Those enclosures.

Thom Dallman: You've got to be kind of careful with that, because we went, I went showing some houses a couple of weeks ago, and we went into a house that was in my opinion as a real estate agent, a little overpriced, but they were banking on the fact that they did, they took this tiny little yard, and they put this big old kitchen, like outdoor kitchen, grill, bar, everything, patio covers and stuff like that. And they just take up, took up the whole yard with this thing and then expected to kind of get more money for their house based off of that, and it was just kind of like, no, no. Unfortunately, people-

Dave Burnett: The kids had nowhere to play.

Thom Dallman: Exactly. Exactly.

Ron Wieczorek: And like you said, you just have to be careful, and be smart about it.

Thom Dallman: Exactly.

Ron Wieczorek: Just because you do a certain prod, you know just because you upgrade your front door, you may not have really upgraded your front door, so you have to be careful on what you're doing. Like you said, consult with your real estate agent. People ask me those questions all the time and I have my numbers in front of me but you don't want that. You can ask my wife, you do not want me picking out the front door, picking out the garage door. You don't want me on the front lines of any of those decisions.

Dave Burnett: Which we could save for another episode as to why Ron's wife thinks that.

Thom Dallman: Right.

Dave Burnett: Obviously there must be some history to that and choosing wrong things.

Ron Wieczorek: I don't always agree with her point of view, but I think she's on to something on this one.

Dave Burnett: Ron, if somebody wants to get a hold of you, talk about a home loan to talk about maybe maybe they want to do some renovations, maybe consolidation or refinancing for their house, how do they get hold of you?

Ron Wieczorek: Perfect segue. My number is, my cell phone is always on me. It's (208) 869-9154.

Dave Burnett: Ron, of course, with Flagstar Bank, one of the sponsors of the Idaho Real Estate Buzz, along with the folks at Core Group @ eXp Realty CoreGroupRealty.com, (208) 933-7777, find out why they say you get more with Core.

Segment 3

Dave Burnett: This is the Idaho Real Estate Buzz. He is Thom Dallman, the co-owner, also one of the associate brokers at Core Group at EXP Realty. And you know Thom, we talk about homes, we talk about the history of homes, we talk about where homes are going, how-

Thom Dallman: What don't we talk about with homes?

Dave Burnett: Really. We've kind of covered the gamut.

Thom Dallman: Yeah.

Dave Burnett: We've talked about the fact that you know, after World War II homes were like 800 to 900 square feet, and some homes are just mega homes.

Thom Dallman: Yeah.

Dave Burnett: Different friends and-

Thom Dallman: If you get out for the parade of homes, this is the last weekend for it. So make sure you get out this weekend. But, there are some mega homes out there.

Dave Burnett: And-

Thom Dallman: Crazy.

Dave Burnett: It's odd because I mentioned to you last week, I said, "Now, have you heard about this guy that's doing this thing with containers or something?" I think you said "Funny you should say that."

Thom Dallman: It's funny you should say that. I just took a tour of their facility last week. So we have this gentleman right here in the studio today with us. Scott Flynn from Indie Dwell. Indie Dwell homes or was there like an end to that or was it just Indie Dwell?

Scott Flynn: It's just Indie Dwell.

Thom Dallman: Just Indie Dwell.

Scott Flynn: Yeah.

Thom Dallman: But you guys are, basically your whole premises, the storage container homes, is that correct?

Scott Flynn: That is correct. Yeah. We build healthy, durable, sustainable, energy efficient homes out of recycled shipping containers.

Thom Dallman: That's just amazing to me and I got to walk the facility in the factory to see how it's done and it's amazing.

Scott Flynn: Well thank you.

Thom Dallman: It's amazing the work that you guys do.

Dave Burnett: If I could stop right here.

Thom Dallman: Yep.

Dave Burnett: And just say, "Okay. Storage containers. What? What are you talking about?" Somehow I get the wrong image when you say storage containers.

Scott Flynn: Yeah.

Dave Burnett: Now, I have had the advantage that I have seen photographs of this and you wouldn't think storage containers when you see it.

Scott Flynn: Yeah. When you first go online to check it out, you can run into some pretty odd homes built out of these containers and even when they don't get covered up, they could look rusty and all that. But, when you walk into one of our homes and stand in it, unless we told you different, you would not know the difference.

Dave Burnett: So Scott, tell us a little bit, where did the idea come from? How did you get started?

Scott Flynn: Oh, that's a great question. So, it came about three years ago. I read an article out of the Idaho Statesman that said that there were close to 8000 home shortage in Boise alone or people that are considered in the affordable category of income. And basically that means that, you take the average income of the area that you're talking about, and then you say you take 80% of that, 50% of that, 30% of that, and that's what quotes would be considered affordable. So in Boise, we have an average income of like $67,000 for a family of four. Then you just say you take 80% of that and your 80% ami, or your 50% Ami. So there's definitions to affordability.

And so, it said those, all these people in these income brackets below the affordable housing, or the average American income, there was 8000 door shortage just in Boise. It's just like floored me. Well, at the time I had a custom home building company called Flynner Design And Build. And we're known for our high performance healthy homes. But it's for the say upper 10%. These are high quality, high end, larger custom homes. And I thought to myself, "How could I put everybody in the income spectrum into a Flynner home? And so to do that, I had to say step outside of how a home is built and look at the entire construction process from anywhere to say how a company is incorporated, to its culture, to its products and the end product delivers to society. And that's where Indie Dwell came in.

And so, how we disrupted it is, we incorporated with, we're known, we're a public benefit corporation.

Dave Burnett: Okay.

Scott Flynn: Okay. So we all typically understand what a corporation is. A corporation is inherently bound to maximize its profits for its shareholders.

Dave Burnett: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Scott Flynn: Or it's subject to litigation. It takes from the many and gives to the few. That's it's job. A public benefit corporation, we're a for profit company, but we're bound to our mission. So what that does is, it frees up our bottom line to serve all of our stakeholders. And stakeholder is any person, place or thing, that touches a company. So all of our employees, it could be the environment, it could be society in general, it could be our clients, it can, it can be our vendors. If we're giving back, we are then serving our mission. And so that's how we incorporate it. That was the first way we, we disrupted, say the industry.

And then our culture is, we're all inclusive. So, going back to say, traditional capitalism, a business model or how society is set up, we call current way of thinking, it's an extraction capitalism. Again, it takes from the many and gives to the few. What we do is, we say we still support capitalism, but we call it inclusive capitalism. So again, going back to any person that touches Indie Dwell, especially our employees, is included in the ownership and the success of the company.

Dave Burnett: Cool.

Scott Flynn: Okay. So Indie Dwell is a great snapshot of society. Okay. We have 70 to 80% of our staff, are the people that build things. Right? Well, in general society, they're the ones that are left out, they're not included. So they're building a society that they can't afford to live in right now. And that's becoming a clear problem. And then say the top, the other 20 to 30 of us percentage, are say, the administration. We always assume that they're going to have the benefits, and the profit sharing, and the higher paying jobs. But everybody in Indie Dwell is included in say profit sharing. Everybody has health insurance, paid time off, paid holidays. Everybody has equity.

Dave Burnett: That's awesome. That's cool.

Scott Flynn: You know, so-

Dave Burnett: Not very many people doing their jobs.

Scott Flynn: Yeah. I mean, most people that are building society right now are just like, We don't get that." So they get that with Indie Dwell.

Dave Burnett: Yeah, yeah. Cool.

Scott Flynn: Right? And then we look at the way that our materials, so our shipping container. Right? And I mean some interesting facts about shipping containers. There's upwards to 50 million of them in the world.

Dave Burnett: Yeah. That are just, from my understanding, they're just sitting there, they're not even like, a majority of them are not even being used.

Scott Flynn: Yeah. About half of them have been decommissioned. So they still have their structural integrity. But they say they're highly regulated. And so there's inspectors that say some don't qualify for global transport anymore. And those are the ones that we use.

Thom Dallman: So we're talking about the containers, like you see on a cargo ship.

Scott Flynn: Right.

Dave Burnett: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Thom Dallman: That's loaded up with all these big containers on them. Perhaps perhaps that large, it might be smaller, but that's what we were talking about. Those that ship TVs, TV sets and, and goods from China to America.

Scott Flynn: That's right. So typically, not typically, they are built in China, and then we pack them full of the stuff that come to America. And America is not exporters, so, we don't make anything here anymore to balance it out. So these containers just sit in our ports, and they start to build up. And so then, we buy them.

Dave Burnett: That's awesome.

Thom Dallman: Take us through a little bit of the, like, what is the process I guess for the actual using the storage, converting it into a livable space?

Scott Flynn: Yeah. Great. That's a great question. And so, we didn't invent this piece of construction, so that's why I say, we're not really disrupting this piece of it. Cause, manufactured homes are, or modular home building in a factory has been around for a long time. Just the technology is super antiquated. And it's like-

Thom Dallman: And the relationship to that, just for the listener, I, modular and manufactured homes are kind of homes that are created in the factory and put together on sites.

Scott Flynn: Correct.

Thom Dallman: So almost all of it's built at the factory, just like the storage container.

Dave Burnett: Basically and assembly line.

Thom Dallman: Yeah.

Scott Flynn: Yeah. It's like, it's-

Thom Dallman: From one section to the next.

Scott Flynn: Totally.

Thom Dallman: Put the walls. Then there are wiring. Blah blah blah.

Dave Burnett: Yeah.

Scott Flynn: Yeah. It's considered off site construction is what they call it. And there's two big classes of it. There's manufactured homes, and then there's modular homes. And manufactured homes are what most view that come out of a factory that would be trailer homes or mobile homes. They're built to other lower standard. Right? They're-

Thom Dallman: Yeah.

Dave Burnett: They're designed to be moved from place to place.

Scott Flynn: The difference of what we do, or modular construction, it's considered the same as site built, stick-built. So any of these houses that you're seeing around the valley being built, as far as the industry is concerned, we are building the same type of home.

Thom Dallman: Yeah.

Scott Flynn: Okay. So these appreciate with the market. They go on a foundation. You can get financing for them. Appraisers see them the same. And so, it's the same thing. And that's where we're saying we're building a super high quality product at an affordable price that appreciates with the market. So when you get in one of these, you can actually get ahead.

Thom Dallman: Exactly. Exactly.

Dave Burnett: Thom and Scott, if I could interject here real quick at the end of this segment already.

Scott Flynn: Okay.

Dave Burnett: If we could do this, if we could take a break, cause I want to come back and talk about the units themselves.

Scott Flynn: For sure.

Dave Burnett: About the homes. We're talking to Scott Flynn, who was with Indie Dwell. And, Have you got a website where people can go to for this information?

Scott Flynn: Sure do. It's indiedwell.com.

Dave Burnett: Just spell that out.

Scott Flynn: Make sure. I-N-D-I-E-D-W-E-L-L.com.

Dave Burnett: Dot com.

Scott Flynn: Yeah.

Dave Burnett: All right. We're going to take a quick break, come back. And we want to talk about the homes, what's going into them. We've heard a little bit about the philosophy of the company. Want to find out more about the homes and how maybe you or somebody know could get into it. As we continue with the Idaho Real Estate Buzz. Being brought to you by the folks at Flagstar Bank and of course at Core Group at EXP Realty. Give them a call today. (208) 933-7777. Or of course, you can always go to the website, CoreGroupRealty.com. Find out why they say, "You get more with Core."

Segment 4

Dave Burnett: This is the Idaho Real Estate Buzz. He is Thom Dallman, the co-owner, and also one of the associate brokers at Core Group at EXP Realty. CoreGroupRealty.com., that is the website to go to and the phone number of course, 208-933-7777.

Thom, we... last segment talking to Scott Flynn with IndieDwell Homes.

Thom Dallman: IndieDwell. Yes, and it's fascinating. Storage container home building, and so fascinating that we're bringing in into two segments, which if you're a regular listener, we very rarely ever do this, so thanks, Scott, again for being here-

Scott Flynn: Thank you.

Thom Dallman: ... and sharing your information. The first part was all about the mission and vision of your company, which I think is cool to hear that passion and that desire to give back to the community and stuff, so... But we'd love to hear a little bit more about the actual product that you guys have. We started a little bit in the first segment, but yes. Let's see.

What would be the first question that someone would ask, I guess, in the building process?

Scott Flynn: Yes. That's a great question. So if we go back to our core values and what we deliver in our product, it's durability, sustainability, energy efficiency and health. Right? So, those are our values that we never waiver on, and plus it happens to be affordable. Right? So it's trying to make the highest quality, healthiest product available to just about everybody on the income spectrum.

And so we had to look at all of our materials, like how can we disrupt the construction process and what materials would that take and what's readily available?

So the shipping container, we looked at that, and at first... I looked at it years ago and I went, "No way," and then I came back to it and went, "You know what? This is it."

Dave Burnett: Well, I don't think the average person... I started thinking about it, I've seen them on TV, I've seen them on a ship out on the coast, I've never been in one. Isn't it a big metal box?

Scott Flynn: It's a huge metal box. They're eight feet wide. They're 40 feet long. They're nine and a half feet tall. They weigh 8,000 pounds.

Thom Dallman: Talk about the durability that seems like that would stand up to any storm that we have through here.

Dave Burnett: So, it's a shell.

Scott Flynn: It's a shell. It's the exoskeleton, we like to say. And that's all of our structure. And so what we do is we in encapsulate the steel with rigid insulation and that wall system is so efficient that we get to reduce the size, the thickness of that wall by 20% and still achieve the same efficiencies.

So in our eyes, being building scientists, that is sustainability. We're achieving the same with less.

And so, if we move on to durability, right? Because anywhere people can save money along the way if they don't have to or repaint or re-roof or redo their cabinets or anything like that, it saves them money over time. So we're constantly looking at things like that. So our siding has a 50 year warranty on it. The paint on the siding has a 15 year warranty on it. The windows are from Pella, right? They're Energy Star, actually they outperform Energy Star.

And then, are the healthy aspects. We put systems in our houses that are constantly refreshing the air inside and it's called an ERV, an energy recovery ventilator.

The heating and cooling system is 400% efficient. And you ask how can that possibly be? The way they look at it, for every dollar you put in it gives you $4 of heat back. And in it, how that works is in the winter time where it's really cold to you and I, there's always heat in the air. So it grabs the heat, it bundles it up, and it brings it in for free heat energy.

Dave Burnett: Interesting.

Scott Flynn: So everywhere we're looking, we look everywhere, and make sure that everything that goes into our home is meeting one of these four qualities.

Thom Dallman: Cool. Very cool.

Dave Burnett: So you get a lot, you bring in a container, but it's more than one container. It's not like a big mobile home, it's more than one container. How does that work?

Scott Flynn: We have... Our current offerings are one, two and three put together. So each one's 320 square feet. And so you just add them up. So 320, 640, 960 and so the model one or the model three is what we're calling it, the 320, it's a one bedroom, full bath, full kitchen.

The 640 square unit is two containers put together and that's two bedrooms about, huge kitchens. And then when we put three together, we can do all sorts of different combinations. But you could get up to four bedrooms, two bath. You can do a master bedroom with two spare bedrooms or a master bedroom and a spare bedroom and a bigger living room. And so all of these are on our website if you want to go see them.

Dave Burnett: I would assume when it comes to construction workers, a welder's a very important aspect of this job.

Scott Flynn: Massive.

Thom Dallman: Right?

Dave Burnett: Because the whole concept is different than stick building, which you were involved in. It's now suddenly working with metal.

Scott Flynn: Oh, absolutely. Yes. You have to rethink how you... What framing means and lay out of the framing means, cause you're not building openings, you're removing pieces and it's literally like opposite thinking and-

Thom Dallman: Aligning, I imagine, too the containers to fit together in that, with those openings and stuff to create that ultimate space.

Scott Flynn: Yes. And so yes, our welders are some of our key players in all of this.

Thom Dallman: How long of a process is it from when someone comes and consults with you to having a finished product to move into? Because I know, we always talk about the standard 90 to six months for new construction homes and stuff like that, depending on the builder and the contractor's availability and stuff like that. Is the container homes a similar process?

Scott Flynn: Well a lot of it depends on how fast the client moves up front with getting their lot prepared and getting their foundation in, and we can do the foundation too, but if you want to just distill it down to the the production process, we have a seven stage process. All right? And every four days the houses move. So seven times four is 28 days. So we're on a 28 day throughput right now. We're going to be cutting that in half here by the end of third quarter. So we'll be going down to a 14 day stage process.

Thom Dallman: Wow. That's awesome.

Scott Flynn: Yes, and that's not our final goal. That's just our next goal.

Dave Burnett: Scott Flynn is with us with indieDwell. Let me ask you this question. I'm getting a lot of questions in my mind as we sit here and talk.

Thom Dallman: I feel like we could just keep going on and do 10 segments.

Dave Burnett: As you first came up with this idea, when you walked into the bank and said, here's what I want to do. Did they look at you and go, "Yes, Scott. Okay. Have a seat over there."

Thom Dallman: Oh boy.

Dave Burnett: How did the financial institutions approach that?

Scott Flynn: So, the overall headwinds of it all. Yes. When you move away from typical stick construction, you better want to get up a few hours earlier everyday. So yes.

Our first sign of it was when we submitted for permits to the state of Idaho-

Dave Burnett: Oh boy.

Scott Flynn: It usually takes three weeks.

Dave Burnett: Yes.

Scott Flynn: It took us five months. The only difference is, it's a shipping container and there was some learning on our end. I'm not going to say it's all the state of Idaho, but you can see that right there was a huge sign like okay now how does that apply to development, financing and citing and out of state jurisdictions?

Thom Dallman: Oh yes.

Scott Flynn: Yes, so, oh boy, we talk about this all the time.

Dave Burnett: I was wondering because I could just somehow visualize a banker going, "Yeah, right. Okay. Next."

Thom Dallman: Exactly. Exactly.

Scott Flynn: You know, modular construction is on a hype right now. It's a big deal, and the industry in general sees it as a massive solution to the housing crisis. And so, we've seen banks come up to speed pretty fast cause they see, if they can figure this out, there's going to be some good loans being made there.

Thom Dallman: Exactly.

Dave Burnett: Well not only when it comes... I guess the other thing I see is when it comes to recycling, if you've ever been to southern California, down near the docks in the shipyard, there are acres and acres of these storage containers just stacked up there. To be able to reuse these functionally-

Scott Flynn: Right.

Dave Burnett: That's a win.

Thom Dallman: Is a big deal.

Scott Flynn: Yes. There's something in the human spirit that finds curiosity in these things. It's like, it's a massive part of our story is recycling these... this incredible amount of steel that's been, say, put to the wayside.

If you want to get your head around how much steel is in one of these, it takes the same amount of energy to make one of these as it does to launch a space shuttle into orbit.

Thom Dallman: Oh my gosh.

Dave Burnett: Wow.

Scott Flynn: And there's 50 million of them.

Thom Dallman: That's crazy. That is crazy. It's staggering. Just the thought of like how much money and effort and energy goes into these things-

Scott Flynn: It's massive.

Thom Dallman: Just to have them used once and then sit there for the most part.

Scott Flynn: Well, I believe, and I hope that they're used way more than once. Hopefully they've gone around the world 10 times, but yes.

Thom Dallman: Hopefully, yes.

Dave Burnett: I would hope so. Tom, you've had a chance to tour these?

Thom Dallman: Yes, yes. I got out to their facility about a month ago, month and a half ago. Amazing facility. It just, it's so cool to see the process. And you guys have a model home there so that people can actually see a finished product and stuff.

So, really worth getting to seeing if you can get in there and schedule a appointment to go check out the model home at least.

Scott Flynn: Yes.

Thom Dallman: And stuff. So, it's a fascinating process.

Dave Burnett: Now I would assume... I opened the can of worms, I may as well go ahead and stick my hand in it. You do have lenders and people who work with you and able to finance, correct?

Scott Flynn: That's correct.

Dave Burnett: Okay. I just wanted to double check since I opened that can of worms, I better go ahead and make sure the proof is in the pudding.

Thom Dallman: We have Ron, Ron from Flagstar also looking into what options he can do as well. So it's something he's gonna try to figure out as well.

Scott Flynn: Yes, the banking industry is definitely scrambling to figure out how they can... more banks can get involved with this because the industry is moving this way.

Thom Dallman: Yes, exactly.

Dave Burnett: Ron Flynn, who is with indieDwell-

Thom Dallman: Scott Flynn.

Dave Burnett: I'm sorry, Scott. I was thinking of-

Scott Flynn: We were talking Ron.

Dave Burnett: Again. Scott, let me ask you this question, where do you see, oh, I sound like a school teacher or something, where do you see yourself two years from now and what you have begun here? What is your vision for what will happen in the coming years?

Scott Flynn: That's an awesome question. So this ties into the fanaticism that we were talking about before we got on air. We have done zero in marketing. We literally have zero spent in marketing, and we have upwards to $300 million in our potential sales pipeline.

Thom Dallman: Wow.

Scott Flynn: We have governors, we have health foundations from all over the country that want to be involved with indieDwell and want us to come and build factories there because we are a human based factory, and so not only do we build houses, but we create jobs and economic growth.

So, two years we should have several factories outside of Idaho.

Thom Dallman: Awesome.

Scott Flynn: And a very robust factory here.

Thom Dallman: That's really cool.

Dave Burnett: That is great.

IndieDwell is the name of the company and Scott Flynn is our guest. I encourage you to go the website. I'm assuming we'll get a link up at the CoreGroupRealty.com.

Thom Dallman: We'll get a link in there. Yes. All of these are posted on our blog site under the Idaho Real Estate Buzz, so we'll have links there to connect you to your, to the indieDwell.com site, so you can do a quick access or just go there.

Dave Burnett: The perfect thing for you to do on your Saturday or Sunday as you're lounging around the house looking at homes. Go click there and check this out. Something new, something different and excited to be able to talk with you about this today Scott. Thank you so much.

Scott Flynn: Well thank you so much for having me.

Dave Burnett: This is the Idaho Real Estate Buzz being brought to you by the folks at Flagstar Bank, and, of course, Core Group at EXP Realty. Give them a call, (208) 933-7777. Find out why they say you get more with Core.

Scott Flynn




Ron Wieczorek

Flagstar Bank

208 869-9154


Core Group at eXp Realty

208 639-7700



Back to Top