Dennis Celsor

So how does an owner builder consultant get started in home building? Raised on farms in Tennessee and Kentucky, Dad taught me how to fix just about anything. I had been groomed to be a preacher and church leader. Faith and church were extremely important to our family and still are. After moving to Houston and graduation from Abilene Christian with a degree in ministry and serving 2 years as a youth minister, I just could not see myself as a vocational minister for life. I certainly did not sense a call. Now what do I do? I struggled with several different jobs with no real satisfaction, ending in a difficult divorce.

Mom and Dad had been “flipping” homes and small apartments and invited me to join them, so I headed back to Houston. They had bought a shell home, where the owner builder had gotten frusturated totally doing it on his own and had thrown up his hands and quit before he finished the roof. We had to do quite a bit of “fixing” to rotted sections. This was long before the internet, so I bought books and began learning the techniques of home construction. We learned a lot as we completed the construction of that home, doing most of the work ourselves and enjoyed living in it a number of years.

After a year of struggling flipping homes and apartments, we realized we needed steady income, so I joined the Houston Fire Department. As Houston was going through the bust of the 1980’s, our family developed a line of credit with private lenders that enabled us to buy foreclosures. I remember one day trying to impress our lender with how secure his loan would be on this property. He looked at me and said, “Young man, if I did not trust you, I would not loan you this money.”
From 1985-1990, we built a family business of 27 rental units. For years, I worked at the fire department, and days off I worked on rent houses. My truck was rigged out to fix everything I possibly could on those rentals. During that time, we learned quite a bit of how not to build homes, as we fixed numerous builder’s mistakes.

Rebecca and I married in 1984 and moved into a foreclosure “starter” home which I had repaired. I told her we would start construction on our new home within 2 years. Well, it took us longer than that to find our first dream property of 3.25 acres out in the country. I found a student at the University of Houston who was pursuing a masters degree in architecture. He gave me a deal on design costs and began drawing plans for our dream home. 4000 square feet of conditioned area. Did I ask anyone how much that would cost? No!!! I just assumed since I planned to do qute a bit of the construction, that we could afford it.

Now, picture this. Houston Fire Department Engineer’s salary. No extra income from rentals as we were paying for rehabs out of pocket. A beautiful wife at home taking care of 3 little ones under the age of 4. We finished those plans for the new home and began shopping custom home builders. We were blown away as the proposals from the builders were about 2.5x the mortgage we could qualify for.

Finally, I fould a builder who agreed to build the shell, if we would reduce the plans down to 3200 square feet, which we did. That meant throwing away the prior plans for which I had gotten at such a deal. That was an early lesson at the University of Hard Knocks. The builder built the shell for our new home, and I burned 3.5 months of vacation finishing the inside of the home with some help from family and friends. Our young family lived in that home for 13.5 years before we began construction of our second custom home. What a great place for our children to enjoy their childhood. Wow, did I learn a lot in building that home, including what to do and what not to do. More University lessons. Sure pays dividends today.