How a Family Business Builds Dream Homes

Steve Lade (00:00)
in 1995, my brother joined along. So me and my brother have been together doing some kind of, you know, something together. And it’s mainly been home since 95, just us, you know, us two and my father. We’ve, we started LTX back in 2019.

Just me and my brother. The next year, it was just a thing that, we’re only going to build three houses a year or something like that. And then in two years, we’re building 50. ⁓ So we’ve added, yeah, we’ve grown pretty quick, but we added my daughter. She’s our office manager. My son-in-law is one of our superintendents. My son is a superintendent. And then my future daughter-in-law, they’re getting married in November 22nd.

Kristen Knapp (00:26)
Wow.

nice.

Steve Lade (00:42)
So

she is also working here and she does all of our plans and permitting. And then I always call him, my worst one of all is my father-in-law. He’s our warranty guy. And I always tell everybody when I talk to the buyers that he is their best friend and my worst enemy because he will warranty anything. I don’t care if it’s somebody hanging off of a towel rack and pull it down, he’s wanting me to warranty it.

Kristen Knapp (02:39)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m Kristen and I’m here with Steve Lade, the founder of LTX Home Builders. And I’m excited to get into this family business. Thanks for being here, Steve. Amazing. Well, let’s go to the beginning. How did you get into this industry? It seems like it goes very deep within your family.

Steve Lade (02:49)
⁓ thank you all.

Yeah. So in 1993, me and my father started doing business. were, we’ve done cars. started flipping houses, flipping land. And so we’ve been kind of doing it. And then

in 1995, my brother joined along. So me and my brother have been together doing some kind of, you know, something together. And it’s mainly been home since 95, just us, you know, us two and my father. We’ve, we started LTX back in 2019.

Just me and my brother. The next year, it was just a thing that, we’re only going to build three houses a year or something like that. And then in two years, we’re building 50. ⁓ So we’ve added, yeah, we’ve grown pretty quick, but we added my daughter. She’s our office manager. My son-in-law is one of our superintendents. My son is a superintendent. And then my future daughter-in-law, they’re getting married in November 22nd.

Kristen Knapp (03:34)
Wow.

nice.

Steve Lade (03:50)
So

she is also working here and she does all of our plans and permitting. And then I always call him, my worst one of all is my father-in-law. He’s our warranty guy. And I always tell everybody when I talk to the buyers that he is their best friend and my worst enemy because he will warranty anything. I don’t care if it’s somebody hanging off of a towel rack and pull it down, he’s wanting me to warranty it.

But no, I’ve known my father-in-law for…

you for a very long time.

Kristen Knapp (04:20)
That’s amazing. I mean, it’s so fun to work with your entire family. Right.

Steve Lade (04:24)
It is and it isn’t. I’ll tell you that because I mean the best part

is it’s your family. The worst part is when you have the bumps in the roads or anything like that sometimes you bump heads but you know at the end of the day we go home and we’re you know we’re all family we all love each other and we love what we do.

Kristen Knapp (04:35)
Bye.

Yeah, how do you kind of navigate that? Like, do you have any boundaries in place where you don’t bring up work at home? Or how does that work?

Steve Lade (04:50)
Well, that’s funny because with me, I work 24-7 and my daughter is exactly like me. anytime, if I see her call it instead of, dad, how’s life? Just want to tell you, it’s all about business. But we try to separate it as much as we can. We are a very, very close family. We see each other five to six days a week.

And it’s it’s great. I mean when you start thinking about it when I was younger It’s like ⁓ man, I have to deal with my brother today or or whatever But now it’s you know, we we have our own goals and we have our own things that we do he handles you know a lot of the all a lot of the foundation getting the house ready to start framing and then I’ll handle the sales and part of the marketing and an Overlooking part of the construction because I’ve been doing this for 30 years now

Kristen Knapp (06:04)
.

Yeah, yeah, it’s a long time. So what about the industry do you love so much?

Steve Lade (06:17)
Honestly, it’s the people. One of the best things in life is when you build a house and it’s a first time buyer and just seeing the look of them, it just amazes me. It reminds me when I bought my first house, it really does. And then the quality of the house, I take it very personal. If there’s something wrong, it’s like we’ll go above and beyond that warranty sometimes. And it’s just because

Kristen Knapp (06:31)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Lade (06:40)
I treat it like it’s my baby, you know, I really do. And I try to teach my kids and, you know, their husband and wife and everything that, you treat it like it’s part of your family because I used to drive around at all the houses that I’ve built and I’m like, wow, this is just, it’s just awesome. And I still see people every day and I wave at them and, houses that I built five years ago. I mean, I just, when I see them, I can see them at a grocery store or whatever and they’re

You know, it’s just like we just met again. And that’s to me, that’s just the best. And when we build these houses, so everybody that lives at our house, of course, we have, we all have, we all built our own house and the materials that we use in the houses that we, that we sell are the same that we use in our own house. There’s nothing different tile, LVP, baseboards. mean, it doesn’t matter. It’s all the same.

Kristen Knapp (07:26)
Yeah.

Yeah, I mean that’s amazing. So you really do treat your customers, clients like family. Is that your family in the back on that photo? Yeah.

Steve Lade (07:38)
yeah, I’m sorry. So my son, my daughter-in-law,

me, my wife, who we’re gonna have our 30 year anniversary this year, we’ve been together since we were 15 and 16 years old. So you see, I don’t like changing, Janeth. That’s my daughter and that’s my son-in-law.

Kristen Knapp (07:45)
wow, congrats.

You are a man who knows what he wants. You met your wife early, you picked your career early, and both been like the best decisions.

Steve Lade (07:58)
Yeah. I know we were

we were 15 and 16 years old. So yeah. And we’ve been together ever since. I don’t know how she puts up with me because I’m usually on the phone or you know, like tomorrow I’m going to be showing houses. There’s a lot of times where a home buyer doesn’t want to meet with a realtor. They want to meet with somebody that built a house or that owns the house. And so I get that. So tomorrow I’m going to show around somebody five or six houses and

Kristen Knapp (08:03)
Wow.

That’s amazing.

Wow.

Steve Lade (08:25)
And to me, that is like, love it. Some people are like, I don’t want to do it. Not me. I don’t care if we built a million houses a year. It is just something that I love. I love talking to people and I love when they see a house and, you know, 99.9 % of the time they’re like, wow, this is impressive because, you know, we’re a small family business, but, you know, like I said, everything that we do, we try to do at the highest quality. I guess that’s probably why our profit margins aren’t real big.

Kristen Knapp (08:28)
Yeah.

Steve Lade (08:52)
But to me, sometimes it’s not always about money. It’s about just how you treat people and you want to be treated the same. And the love that I have for building, I just love it. I love when people, when they buy the house, it’s not, yeah, it’s great when you sell the house and when you’re able to pay your bills from it. But when you talk to the people, I mean, they’re just, they’re absolutely thrilled. I don’t care. We just sold the house and he said, this is like his 20th house.

Kristen Knapp (09:16)
Wow.

Steve Lade (09:16)
retiree

and he goes, this is it. I’m going to, we’re moving on the golf course. And, and a wife looked at me and she goes, we’ll be buying from you again in two years. So, I mean, it’s just, that’s what really makes you, you know, get up in the morning. I get up and leave my house by six, six 30. I drive around, look at all the houses that everybody’s building. And then I come to the office and my realtors start calling me real quick and I’m going through different pur, you know, buying or selling. So

Kristen Knapp (09:24)
Yes.

Steve Lade (10:16)
You know, and I start leaving the office between six and seven o’clock. just because I just love what I do. I really do. mean, it’s and it makes it so easy to come in every day. And then I get to be with my family every day. Sometimes it’s good because I always talk about my daughter. She is, you know, she is a she’s like the bulldog, man. You don’t want to get on her bad side, but but she’s also the sweetest young lady you’ll ever meet. It’s like the, know, just like like this. And I think a lot of it’s because we’re the same.

Kristen Knapp (10:46)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it must be so gratifying because you’re really helping people at such an emotional part of their lives. It’s a very big milestone to purchase a new home. Even if it’s your 20th home, it’s still so important. So I can imagine that’s just such an amazing part of the job.

Steve Lade (11:00)
it is, it’s, you know, and a lot of these people, the biggest purchase they’re ever gonna do. it’s, you know, and it’s besides having a baby or getting married, it’s one of the biggest life-changing things that you’re gonna do. So you have to be ready for it. You have to say, love the neighborhood, I love the house, everything about it, and that’s what we go for.

Kristen Knapp (11:05)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely, absolutely. And with your, with LTX, is there a certain style that you guys are known for? Is there something that really, you know, is an LTX home?

Steve Lade (11:30)
Yeah,

yeah, so we first started building in Lago Vista. We’ve built a couple hundred houses there and we went with the modern look and that’s what you know, and that really set us apart. And then we got switched to start building in the Hill Country. So. We have the third acre lots with the modern, you know roofs and then you go out to burn it where the you know it’s more of a farm style because you’re building on two acres or.

Kristen Knapp (11:38)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Lade (11:56)
You know, five acres, seven acres, whatever it is. So you’re building more of a farmhouse. we’re, we’re doing quite a bit of different stuff. And then we’re building now outside of marble falls. And those are kind of like little farmhouse lake houses. It’s, hard to explain, but it’s, you know, it’s a $299,000 house. It’s in a Lake, you know, it’s in a Lake community, which is, it’s just a beautiful community. And so we’re building the 1,253 square feet and we’re selling them for 299 over there.

Like I said, it’s you know you you go a 10th of a mile. You’re setting right at the lake. You know, beautiful parks. They have a kid kids area pool area, so it’s just it’s it’s fun to build and when you find these communities again, it’s like man, I would love to live there and that’s everywhere we go. I always say I would. I would live in this in a heartbeat and then we in the problem with Texas is Texas is so beautiful. You go just a little ways down the road. All of sudden you have mountain views, so it’s.

Kristen Knapp (12:41)
Mm.

Yeah.

I…

Steve Lade (12:53)
I

have a developer that’s offering us lots to build and it’s got some of the most amazing views you’ll ever see. It’s crazy. So we’re looking at different things and that’s our, with today, I told everybody when COVID, I told, I remember telling my daughter and my son-in-law and my brother that when COVID hit and you were selling the homes that it’s like playing Monopoly. It’s not real. It’s not real money.

Kristen Knapp (13:20)
Yeah.

Steve Lade (13:20)
because people,

they were just buying it to buy it. It was one of those things. And now you have to try to compete. You’re competing against everybody. I mean, we don’t compete against the D.R. Horton, you know, Linares. You know, they build a complete different product. We have to, you we compete against other mid-sized business, know, mid-sized builders. And our thing is, you know, our houses, we do epoxy floors.

Um, I do a lot of them. crown everything. do six inch baseboards. We do everything to really make the house stand out. And our new thing is now we’re doing the waterfall, um, islands, which are absolutely beautiful. And when people look at houses for, you know, $299,000 and they see all this or 385 or $400,000, they see it. They’re like, wow, you know, cause we have a $299,000 house and then we build a

Kristen Knapp (13:54)
Mmm. Those are gorgeous.

Yeah.

Steve Lade (14:51)
an $800,000 house, the square footage is built, you know, is bigger, but it’s the same baseboard. It’s the same, you know, we do the waterfall islands. mean, crown it. When you open that garage like me, I have to have a clean floor. So that’s why we started doing that. It was like stuff that I seen. And then, you know, my wife, she’s like, well, we need to do this, you know, in the back, in the kitchens.

And instead of doing marble tops in the bathrooms, we’re doing the same courts that we do in the kitchen. So when you walk one of our houses, I mean, we get, you we just get told, wow, this is just awesome. It’s a custom home. And like I said, we build it for the way we want to live into it. You know, and that’s, guess, I guess that’s the, the only bad thing about our model is, is that we can do a, you know, do a lot bigger profit, I guess, on these houses.

But it’s just like I have to walk into it and I have to feel comfortable that I’ve sold this house. And that’s the number one thing that’s important to me.

Kristen Knapp (15:46)
And you guys really focus on energy efficiency, is that correct?

Steve Lade (15:49)
Yes. So when we do our houses, if you go to some of the big box builders, they do a thing called, they do a tie back around it. And it’s just a basically a small cardboard, but it’s engineered is what they say. So what we started with, we were doing OSB or plywood. And then now we’re doing a thing called the zip system. So if you see these houses with the green boards around it and stuff, that helps for your, you know, that.

that brings your costs down. So you’re not having to use spray foam or any of these things. So everything that we do is, like I said, it’s built to be energy efficient. Me and my brother, we did a little comparison on our houses. So he wanted to do the spray foam. I said, hey, go ahead. I’m not doing that stuff. Because I’m always leery about how they say it. And I did our blow-in insulation. So his house at the time is 28, 2,900 square feet.

And mine was about the same thing. And his bill was 170, $160 a month. And mine was right around 110, 120. And he’s got kids, that, know, younger kids, and I know that’s going to make it. But I mean, $120 for Texas Heat, because I like being nice and cool because I’m outside a lot. So mine is set at 70 degrees almost all the time.

Kristen Knapp (17:01)
right?

Wow. Yeah?

Steve Lade (17:08)
Even in the winter, just don’t

move it. I mean, our houses are very energy efficient. We look for that. Like I said, I don’t want someone to call me up and say, hey, our bill’s $500 a month. And I’m telling him, this is what it is. And we don’t have complaints at all. That’s the good thing is that because we’re a smaller builder and we build it for our expectations. And then I have the…

Kristen Knapp (17:19)
Great.

Steve Lade (17:34)
the best warranty guy in the business because he’s my father-in-law and he’s against me on things with the, know, and I’m saying it as a joke, you know, he just makes sure, you know, he’s really tough on these houses when he sells them because he doesn’t want to have the complaints because that’s who it’s going to go to.

Kristen Knapp (17:50)
Absolutely, I mean that’s amazing and I would love to focus on or switch gears kind of on the other side of your business. You’re not just building, you’re also acquiring homes and other goods and I would love for you to talk about that.

Steve Lade (18:01)
Okay, so we are, I’ve looked around and we’re probably the only builder that actually takes in homes or will take in a car or a truck. And I’ll explain what we’ve done is just recently I decided to say, you know, because I had a contingency on a house and it’s like three months and they, no offers on their house. And I’m just like, can’t, I’m not going to take houses of mine, take them off the market and do contingencies.

So what I’ve done is I said, we’re going to get rid of this. And I went and looked at the house and I said, what will you really take for it? I understand that your realtor says this, but we all know it’s not worth that because if it was, it would sell. So they said, hey, we’ll do this. It was a 2022 house and it was built by Saratoga, who is a very good home builder. So we went over there. They bought one of my houses for $600,000 and I bought theirs for $340,000.

So they got rid of the contingency. Everybody was happy in it because they wanted bigger and they wanted land on two and a half acres. So they wanted land, their house, you the house was a little bit bigger, but it was also a one story and they were fixing to have a baby and they wanted the dream of living in the country and their kids, you know, riding bikes or motorcycles on their property. So we started doing that and then we’ve done a couple of them now. But now I’ve decided, you know, because we had a

a buyer that wouldn’t qualify because of their debt to income. So, you you have now you have to be creative. So, hey, you know, your your truck payment is $1700 a month and you really need to be, you know, they wanted them to be around 12 to 13. They were rolled in on their truck. So what I did is I took their truck in on trade. And they were allowed to buy a new truck after the closing and their DTI actually went down way down.

They were able to buy a new truck and it was like a thousand or 1100 bucks because they just thanked me for it. And I’m like, wow, this is really kind of catching on. So now I said, you know, I don’t care what it is. If it’s a car, boat, RV, jet ski, an ATV, UTB, a tractor, cause I have a, I have a small ranch where I live at a tractor, anything of value. And I’m a big sports collector collector. So, you know, I hate doing that because then I want to keep it, you know, but, um,

Kristen Knapp (19:42)
that.

Yeah.

Steve Lade (20:10)
You know, just

really anything and I even said livestock. One of my cousins, yeah, he’s a rancher. So he’s like, you know, he always he’s got that real Texas. Hey, Stevie, you get any cows in, I’ll buy them from you. So I’m taking anything, anything of value because, know, ⁓ they might have a lot that they just they haven’t been able to sell. So just think about it. If you own a lot and it’s worth forty thousand dollars, that’s your down payment.

Kristen Knapp (20:20)
Yeah. ⁓

Alright.

Right?

Steve Lade (20:35)
You know, I mean, it

really helps in the same thing about helping your DTI or just you’re short on your down payment, but you have all these toys and you just you don’t use them anyway. So, you know, trade it in. And that’s where we’re trying to find different ways to help people get into houses ⁓ because everybody’s just kind of waiting for. that’s what I think in the industry. As soon as they they drop rates a little bit, it’s going to be like a frenzy, especially in central Texas and.

Kristen Knapp (20:51)
Mm-hmm. ⁓

Right.

Steve Lade (21:03)
And I try to tell buyers now, right now is the time you want to buy because when that frenzy happens, it’s just crazy how prices all of a sudden go up and you’re competing, you’re doing all that. And right now we’re offering you everything you can do with a 4.8 % trade in your house, cars, boats. I we’re doing anything we can to help people get in a house right now. we have about 40 houses in some stage of construction right now.

Kristen Knapp (21:11)
Right.

That’s incredible.

Wow, that’s so impressive. And you work with lot of first-time home buyers and veterans. That’s amazing.

Steve Lade (21:32)
Yes, the veterans.

Yeah, veterans are a big thing for me. My son spent four years in the army. My father, we lost two years ago. He was an army Vietnam vet and you know, he had, you know, he had Agent Orange. I mean, he had all kinds of things. And so whenever I have a vet come in, it just like it kills me because I want to give them the house. And unfortunately, I wish I could, but I can’t. And the same thing with

you know, nurses, because my wife is a nurse, any kind of first responders, I’m always trying to help them. And there are so many great programs out there, and they’re going to be able to get money cheaper. And we have the lender that will help them. And the lender is just like Alice, it’s all about helping that person. mean, her name is Candy Bouzon with UFCU. I got to give them a shout out, because they’re just awesome.

Kristen Knapp (22:14)
Mm-hmm. ⁓

Steve Lade (22:23)
And she really does, she’s just like us, she does anything she can to try to help them get into a house.

Kristen Knapp (22:28)
I mean that’s so amazing. You really do help people’s lives. You really impact it.

Steve Lade (22:33)
Well, it’s good to, you you can go to bed and sleep at night just to feel how, you know, just, you know, and every time we close a house, it’s just, I mean, it’s a blessing. It really is. And we’re so blessed to what we have and what we’re doing. And the people are, you know, when they buy the house, I I get cards, you know, or emails all the time just thanking us. And, you know, for the price difference that we gave, I mean, they’ll look at other houses and they’re 40, 50, $100,000 difference.

Kristen Knapp (22:37)
Right.

Steve Lade (23:02)
So we work on trying to have a strong family business, we’re also not trying to get 10 times the house or anything like that. We’re selling them at a good value.

Kristen Knapp (23:15)
Amazing. Well, I mean what you’re doing is fantastic and unfortunately we’re at the end of our time. So tell people how to find LTX.

Steve Lade (23:19)
Thank you. Well.

You can go to our website at LTX homebuilders.com. If it tells you what area if you’re looking into, we’re building in seven different areas so you can just when they if it says burn it and you hit you know whatever whatever it prompts you to, but it’ll send you to whatever area also will you know when it comes to us or.

⁓ or email, just send us an email. I always usually, I love responding because everybody’s like, why are you doing this? But I mean, it’s just something I love. I love talking to people.

Kristen Knapp (23:52)
Yeah, amazing. mean, such an impressive family business. And I really encourage everyone listening to check it out.

Steve Lade (23:54)
Thank you.

definitely. Thank you so much for having us.

Kristen Knapp (24:01)
Awesome. Well, thank you for being here and everyone, thank you for listening and we will see you back next time. Bye.

Steve Lade (24:06)
All right, have a great

weekend.