With new homes sales slow and buildable land getting scarce on the island, luxury homebuilder Bob McNally is expanding his business to offer fast, free, comprehensive house evaluations for people buying, selling or renovating older homes on the island and in island adjacent neighborhoods.
McNally’s company Palm Coast Development has done home renovations along with new home building for years, but he’s putting more focus now on expanding and improving existing homes, bringing in his son Austin McNally as executive vice president of the building company to help move the initiative forward. He promises a streamlined consulting, estimating and renovation process that among other things will make it easier for realtors to sell older homes.
He will meet with a realtor, investor, homebuyer or homeowner at no cost, discuss their wish list and budget for renovation, and provide them with options for transforming an older house to meet their needs – and current building codes.
A hypothetical example for a realtor would be if you had a client interested in a specific older house in Riomar or Central Beach. They like the location and a lot of things about the house but aren’t willing to pull the trigger on a purchase because they are unsure how much it would cost to upgrade or expand it as they desire.
In a case like that, McNally will sit down with the realtor and the client, gather info about the client’s wants, needs and style, and produce a plan, cost estimate and timeline for renovation – whether adding square feet, removing walls to open up the floorplan, raising ceiling, redoing kitchens and baths, installing a new roof and windows, or whatever.
He will provide the same service for an investor eyeing a property or a homeowner locked in place by a 3-percent mortgage – someone who is adding up the cost of moving to a bigger house with a 6-percent mortgage while also wondering if the current house can be upgraded to make a wonderful long-term home.
“I think it is a brilliant idea,” says ONE Sotheby’s broker associate Sandra Alexander, noting that most of her buyers will not consider a home that needs work because of uncertainty about the cost of renovation and unwillingness to engage a long, drawn out construction project.
McNally says he can provide clarity quickly and streamline the renovation process, cutting the time to completion by 50 or 60 percent, lubricating the sales process for an older home.
“What we are offering is a simple system we call Palm Coast Signature Renovations,” says McNally, who prides himself on his ability to quickly analyze a house and see its highest potential within budgetary and time constraints.
“We are vertically integrated with our partners so I can include your pool, landscaping and interior design in the estimate along with construction costs.
“If you go the traditional route of finding an architect who may take a year or 18 months to get to your plans and then have to find a builder who has to get estimates from subs to come up with a cost, it can take a long time. We can go from concept to approved plans and permit in four or five months.”
Because McNally has built thousands of homes, including hundreds of high-end custom homes on the island, and remodeled many houses, he says can come up with a structural plan and accurate rough estimate within a day or two.
“I can see immediately what walls to take out to open up a house, where windows and doors should go, what we can do with the ceilings and roof. I sketch the structural plan and then turn it over to the architect or engineer to create working plans. That saves a tremendous amount of time.”
If the estimate exceeds the budget, McNally will provide a phased plan for doing the most crucial work first, with other phases to follow as funds are available – all with no cost or commitment.
“Of course, I would like to win the business, but there is no obligation,” McNally says. “I am offering this as a service to the community.”
“One of the larger stumbling blocks we have to putting a deal together is how much it would cost to update or renovate the aging properties in the market,” says Luke Webb, broker at Luke Webb and Associates. “This is even more crucial now with the higher purchase price on homes and the higher costs to renovate. Having an experienced builder like Bob be willing to come in at no cost and provide a much more accurate estimate than lay people could do would be a major benefit, helping buyers make a more informed decision.”
“Major renovations can be scary and are often plagued by unexpected costs,” adds Richard Boga, co-leader of the O’Dare Boga Dobson Group at ONE Sotheby’s. “Anyone trying to decide between a large-scale remodel or new construction could benefit from Bob’s keen insight and rapid pricing ability.”
Douglas Elliman broker associate Sally Daley, who has worked with McNally on multiple projects and represents four spec homes he has on the market between the bridges, says he is as good as it gets when it comes to seeing the possibilities latent in aging houses and communicating his vision to owners and buyers.
McNally has done high-end home renovations for years, working alongside his wife Jackie – who he says is “brilliant when it comes to kitchen and bath design – and who takes the lead on interior design and remodeling. But he is now shifting more of his attention to that side of the business, as new home sales remain slow and buildable land on the island gets harder and harder to find.
The median age of houses in 32963 is 55 years, according to the US Census Bureau, and there are many homes 60 years old or older on and near the island, with some in Riomar and the Vero Beach Country Club neighborhood dating back to the 1920s.
As buildable land runs out, buyers often face a choice between purchasing an older home in a desirable neighborhood and tearing it down to build new or plunging into renovation to preserve the virtues of the existing structure and save time and money.
But renovation is notoriously filled with pitfalls and the possibility of unexpected costs and delays – which is where McNally comes in.
“We know what to look for to avoid unpleasant surprises,” he says. “We have check lists we’ve developed over decades to know everything you need to look for and consider when making a plan and budget.”
Alexander thinks McNally’s approach could be helpful to an agent at the listing stage if a house is obviously dated and in need of significant upgrades, not just when a buyer is waiting in the wings.
“If Bob came up with a plan and cost and we could get some virtual renderings to go to market with, it would help buyers understand what the house could be,” she says.
“Some houses can’t be successfully renovated at a reasonable cost and should be knocked down,” McNally says. “But many of the houses on the island can and probably should be expanded and improved for new owners and the next generation.”
McNally started in construction and development working for his father’s company in New Jersey, where he climbed through the ranks to become CEO. “We built 3,700-some condominium units and 2 million feet of office space,” he said, noting that the company needed just a two-person service department to service the thousands of condos they delivered, an indication of high-quality construction.
He came to Florida in 1995, working for a couple of years for his wife’s uncle, Phil D’Angelo, building mega-mansions in Stuart – up to 34,000 square feet – before concentrating his efforts on the barrier island.
Here, he has built nearly 300 custom homes and dozens of condo units, including those in Ocean Park, the highly regarded condominium and retail development at Humiston Park.
“We think renovation is going to be a big part of the future of the island housing market, and we plan to really concentrate on that,” McNally says.
Photos by Joshua Kodis
