Mr. Skibo: HouseRaising was founded in 1999 with a focus on the design- and-build custom home market. The Founder and President has been in the homebuilding business for over 40 years, and during that time frame, he has built 2,000 custom homes. HouseRaising's proprietary/patent-pending software is a result of his experiences gained from designing and building these 2,000 custom homes. What he learned was that every design/build project faces 1,269 critical decision points that, if not addressed, create emotional and financial issues for the homebuyers and the builder. He found that by proactively conducting 3,400 specific tasks in a precise manner and exact time, the 1,269 critical areas are resolved. We've divided the 3,400 tasks into six management platforms that meet a serious need for homebuyers who want to build their dream home. What we do is bundle our software with a design center and our custom home building services in order to provide one-stop shopping to our homebuyers. Let's say that you are a homebuyer, you have bought your lot already and now it is time to build the house. When you arrive at HouseRaising, we work with you to complete a questionnaire and from that questionnaire we can give you the price of the house within less than 1%. You can come in with a dream or sketch of a house and we help develop that dream into a house plan and fixed price for the project. When we complete the initial plans and specifications, we provide the engineering drawings behind the architectural plan. We have a design center that you can access so that you literally within that same day can go into the design center and review all the features and products that are included in your house like your cabinets in the kitchen, your windows and flooring and on and on ' down to the door knobs and hinges. If the specification division you selected needs adjustments, you can do it right then and there with no surprises. At that stage, with a firm price on the project, we take you in to get financing, both for a construction loan and for your long-term financing. HouseRaising arranges financing on all project through a single source, making the process simple and efficient. In addition to HouseRaisingUSA, the turn- key homebuilder, HouseRaising customers who chose to be in charge of their projects, acting as the contractor, can work directly with HouseRaising HomeBuyerDirect. Then you can pay for our services and access our project management software over the Internet. Either way, whether HouseRaisingUSA is the general contractor to build the house or the homebuyer chooses HomeBuyerDirect where they are the general contractor, the house is built with HouseRaising's management process assisting the parties throughout the project.
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