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Show Summary
In this episode of the Investor Fuel podcast, host John Harcar interviews Kate Loeb, a renovation expert who transitioned from being a Spanish teacher to a successful contractor. Kate shares her journey of flipping houses with her husband, the importance of balancing design with functionality in renovations, and the challenges faced during real-life projects. She emphasizes the significance of transparent budgeting and the potential pitfalls of DIY renovations. The conversation also touches on the expansion of their business in Houston and the unique challenges of the construction landscape in Texas.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Kate Loeb (00:00)
We were doing a whole home renovation. I mean, this had to bea $700,000 remodel.
the minute we got that floor up
It was sitting on a giant concrete slab that used to be the front porch.
it makes it a lot more difficult. You can’t just like run pipes how you want to in the crawl space, right? Now we’re jackhammering through slabs.
John Harcar (00:15)
Right. Right.Kate Loeb (00:21)
We made it work. We made it work and it’s beautiful. I mean, it really turned out beautifully. But that’s that is one thing where I can say if you had been DIYing that that would have been a real oh moment.John Harcar (00:22)
Nice. It’s awesome.John Harcar (00:22)
All right, hey guys, welcome back to the Investor Fuel podcast. I’m your host, John Harcar, and I’m here today with Kate Loeb. Hope I said that right, Kate Loeb. ⁓ Good, good. And we’re gonna talk about her and her husband. It’s a husband and wife business that do design and renovation. And we’re really gonna talk about how she’s evolved and then just some specific things that you really wanna make to look out for when you’re looking at certain projects. So Kate, welcome to our show.
Kate Loeb (02:24)
You did, thank you.Thank you so much for having me on. It’s a pleasure.
John Harcar (02:45)
Awesome, think ⁓ our listeners are gonna kinda really take away some good tips and knowledge from you about when we’re making those decisions on our projects. But before we do that, ⁓ because our audience might not be too familiar with you, kinda give a little background on your history, what got you into real estate and what you’re doing today.Kate Loeb (03:05)
Sure, absolutely. My journey ⁓ started quite a few years ago. I actually was trained to be an AP Spanish teacher and I was a Spanish teacher for a long time. I know I don’t really look the part, but it certainly helps me now, ⁓ now that I’m in the trades. But I decided about 15 years ago that I wanted to do a career switch. so my husband and I decided to start flipping houses. And what a great experience that was.John Harcar (03:15)
Okay.Definitely.
Kate Loeb (03:35)
He actually came from the insurance industry doing estimating and things like that for large loss. So he was really well versed as to how houses were built and how you need to estimate to fix them. But I’ve always really had this desire to build and construct and kind of be in charge of making things beautiful. So we went down this venture to flip houses and we flipped like 20 houses.in about three years or so. And it was great for me because I learned how to hang sheetrock and set cabinets and do flooring and everything like that. And I kind of got a real hands on knowledge of how to put things together. Exactly. ⁓ I was then fortunate enough, we decided to open up our company and a really good friend of mine ⁓ was in business with me.
John Harcar (04:08)
Mm-hmm.Best way to learn. Yeah, yeah.
Kate Loeb (04:30)
and she had her master’s degree from Columbia University in architectural and interior design. And I was the general contractor in that partnership. And so I got to sit across the desk from this highly trained ⁓ woman and we were doing really large scale residential interior remodeling. And so I got hands-on training from someone with that type of ⁓ background.John Harcar (04:38)
Mm-hmm.Kate Loeb (04:58)
And we did that for five or six years and then she had to move.So my husband and I, you know, got together with the company and he took over a lot of the GCing and I took over a lot of the design work. And from there, we have just kind of built this beautiful thing. ⁓ I’m really excited that we still love each other after working together for 15 years.
John Harcar (05:58)
Okay.You
took away one of my questions I was gonna ask, like, because I’ve worked with my wife and, you know, we’ve had our, yeah, I like to get that idea of what was the experience for you and you said you’re still married, so that’s good. Of course.
Kate Loeb (06:19)
Yeah.Uh-huh. You know, there’s always a learning curve, right? But
I think because we share life together and we share children together, and, you know, we kind of hammered out goals ahead of time, it took a little bit of the pressure off. Not to say that sometimes sharing an office isn’t a little bit annoying, right? You know, where only one can be, only one can be on the phone at a time kind of deal. But all in all, we both wear very distinct hats now, right? So I’m involved with most of the pre-planning.
John Harcar (06:34)
Yeah, communication.Kate Loeb (06:51)
Phase, ⁓ one thing that I left out earlier, I did about eight years in flooring design and sales. And so I have a really ⁓ deep understanding of like different flooring options, different countertops, tiles, how they wear, you know, their livability, things like that. So that helps a lot. But I’m really involved. I do a lot of the drawing, ⁓ like our plan designs and moving traffic patterns and walls and functionality of how a space is. ⁓John Harcar (06:58)
Hmm, okay.Awesome.
Kate Loeb (07:21)
I think that’s one of the biggest key factors that people miss the boat on is they go, I just really want this pretty kitchen. I’ll rip out what I have and put back some new stuff. And they fail to recognize that they still don’t have enough space between their cabinets and their island. Or they’ve put these 12 foot cabinets in and they can’t reach the top three feet. Or.John Harcar (07:26)
Mm.You
Kate Loeb (07:48)
I mean, there’s some really silly trends in design, right? Or I’m like, why are we still doing this? Why are we still building 22 foot ceilings that you have to find curtains for? And why, you know, but anyway, I digress. I think people just wanna rush in and make things really pretty and they neglect the functionality that also has to come with the pretty. So I do all of the.John Harcar (07:52)
Yeah.Hmm
Yes. Yes. Or they take a shortcut
because of price-wise and they don’t take, don’t consider that functionality piece. Yeah.
Kate Loeb (08:20)
Absolutely, SoI do all of the plan design, 3D renderings, which are really helpful for clients. ⁓ I’ve even done it for real estate agents where they’re really close to selling a house, but the client just can’t see that vision. And so we’ll go in and do a 3D rendering of what it could be and what it could cost. And then a lot of times that’s able to help tip the scales in one direction or another.
John Harcar (08:40)
that’s cool.Okay.
Kate Loeb (08:45)
⁓ Then I help with all of the material selection based on their lifestyle, their likes, their dislikes, their colors. ⁓ And then Brian takes over from there and really gets into the estimation part of it. And this is usually where we have, I would say the most back and forth with clients because no matter what price point you’re in, there’s always a budget somewhere, right? ⁓ And so we have just realized that over the years estimatingJohn Harcar (09:07)
Yeah.Kate Loeb (09:14)
is the piece of the puzzle that most people are most nervous about. And so we do everything super transparent. We are line item by line item. You can see what every single thing costs. And if you don’t like how much that tile costs, then let’s pick another tile. Or if you say, you know what, I think I really wanna nudge up my cabinetry budget, great, let’s do that and see what it gets you.But there’s a lot of back and forth with the estimation portion of it to make sure that what people get in the end is both beautiful and functional and within their price range. ⁓ I have seen so many people DIY big home renovations thinking that they’re going to save money.
but what they don’t realize are like, there are so many hidden costs that come with construction that have to be estimated for upfront so that you’re not bombarded with them in a change order at the end, right? I I cannot tell you how many times someone didn’t account for something major and then go, oh my God, you I forgot this $8,000 chunk in my design.
John Harcar (10:46)
Right.It’s not
a big, it’s not a small trunk.
Kate Loeb (11:04)
It’s not, it’s a very expensive education. I always tell people, whether you go with us, whether you go with any, know, whoever you choose, make sure that they have a lot of experience and make sure that they’re very transparent in their pricing and that they have run into snafus before and learned how to fix it.John Harcar (11:06)
Yeah.Mm-hmm.
I think that nails it on the head.
Right. The value people don’t necessarily see is the value of the things that you won’t see or don’t see. And these people do yourself. Right. I think that’s huge. ⁓ Now, all of our you know, a lot of people put out that, hey, our business is great, but I like to touch on, know, let’s make it real moment. So what was a moment that whether it’s in your when you guys were flipping or whether when you’re doing the renovation, what was ⁓ this is real moment like we did this or this happened or this was like the worst thing that could have happened at that type of situation.
Kate Loeb (11:25)
Mm-hmm.Right.
John Harcar (11:55)
.Kate Loeb (11:56)
Yeah,actually I can think of one a couple of years ago. We
were doing a whole home renovation. I mean, this had to be a $700,000 remodel. It was big. And the way we had designed it was to add this entire laundry room and then add a bathroom onto that laundry room. But what you can’t see in remodels is under the walls and under the floors.
Right? So there’s always this little thing we like to call the discovery phase. huh. It’s good times. It’s good times. And I won’t say we didn’t get through this one, but we were adding a bathroom and a laundry room. And what we didn’t know at the time is that that home had already been renovated in that area, like 40 or 50 years ago. And so it was sitting on a giant concrete slab that used to be the front porch.
John Harcar (12:27)
Yeahwow.
Kate Loeb (12:52)
So it makes it a lot more difficult. You can’t just like run pipes how you want to in the crawl space, right? Now we’re jackhammering through slabs. And so I think it was just one of those, the minute we got that floor up, we went, okay, hold on, wait, everybody stop. We have a monolithic rock sitting underneath this laundry room. Mr. And Mrs. Client, how do you wanna proceed? We can A,John Harcar (12:57)
Right. Right.Hahaha
Kate Loeb (13:19)
trench out and carry out all of the concrete and redo. So that’s option one. Obviously that’s going to come with an immense charge, right? I mean, it’s heavy, it’s big, it’s a lot of work. And this laundry room and bathroom was gonna be like 30 feet by like 15 feet. Like it was a big space, big, big space. So that was option number one. Option number two is I go back to the drawing board on design.John Harcar (13:29)
Mm-hmm.Big beer. ⁓
Kate Loeb (13:47)
and by the way, cabinets were already ordered and coming because this is we didn’t want that lead time to like slow us down, right? So, okay, option two, we go back to the drawing board and I reconfigure it, not exactly how it was, but we reconfigure it so that we don’t have to jackhammer it all and we can run the pipes in a different direction. And in doing that, that’s easy. I mean, it’s really easy to do on paper way more so than when we’re already swinging hammers. ⁓John Harcar (13:51)
Of course they were, of course.Mm-hmm.
Yeah, for sure.
Kate Loeb (14:17)
But we then the added difficulty was reusing all of the cabinetry that was already on order. That was like a 12 week lead time. We had to use those exact cabinets in a different configuration in this new design. We made it work. We made it work and it’s beautiful. I mean, it really turned out beautifully. But that’s that is one thing where I can say if you had been DIYing that that would have been a real oh moment.John Harcar (14:30)
Bet you made it work. Nice. It’s awesome.Kate Loeb (14:45)
Right?John Harcar (14:45)
yeah,100%.
Kate Loeb (14:47)
But we had the plumbers on our side, we had the framers on our side. I have designed in-house, so I literally could just go right to the computer and reconfigure and make sure that everything was gonna work. And we really were able to sidestep thatJohn Harcar (14:55)
Right, so it’s easy.Kate Loeb (15:41)
possible $10,000 change order with three or $400 worth of design. Like big deal. ⁓ could have been off.John Harcar (15:44)
Yeah, it could have been worse. Yeah, could have been worse. So your business,your business is in Texas. What part again? What city? Houston. Okay. And is that kind of where you’re, you do all your business? Do you’re looking to grow outside of that? Like what’s the next big thing for you guys in your business?
Kate Loeb (15:53)
Yeah. We’re in Houston. We’re in Northwest Houston.The next big thing we are hopeful to scale ⁓ to the outer sides of Houston. Right now, because Houston, and we joke about this, but Houston is two hours from Houston, right? It’s absolutely immense. And so I’m always a little cautious when I hear people say, we’ll do anything, anywhere. I don’t really want eight hours of road time in a given day. I can’t quality control something from that far away.
John Harcar (16:30)
Yeah.Very true.
Kate Loeb (16:35)
So we really stick to a very tight circle in Northwest and West Houston. However, as our company grows and scales, we will go outside of that footprint. But as with any company, you just, have to find the right people that share your vision, that share your ability to quality control ⁓ and who have manners and talk to clients the same way we talk to clients, right?John Harcar (16:55)
Mm-hmm.Yeah, that’s important. That’s huge.
Is it a function of maybe finding more crews, finding more people to go out that way? Is that kind of where that expansion part would, you know, would, yeah.
Kate Loeb (17:10)
So I thinkso. You know, the interesting thing about Texas that, well, you may love it or you may hate it. You know, it’s a it’s a right to work state, which is wonderful. The issue where that comes in with people in the skilled trades is that it is not a state where you have to be licensed like they don’t license contractors here. ⁓ We did a lot of our work in Washington state, which is highly regulated. I mean,
I mean, regulated and permitted and licensed to the point of you couldn’t cover up sheetrock screws with mud until the sheetrock screws were inspected that they were every 12 inches on center. Like, no joke, no joke. Like everything was very to a T. And so it’s funny because down here, nobody has to be licensed. And so you’re seeing what we see a lot of is a bunch of chuck in the trucks. Any guy with a.
John Harcar (17:51)
Wow, really.Kate Loeb (18:06)
ladder in the back of his truck can be a contractor and that’s absolutely terrifying to me. And it really gives us all a bad name. So I’m very honest with people here and say, you know, we’ve had 10 years experience where all we did was everything to a T by code the right way. And when we open up a lot of walls down here, that is not what we see. So we always go to the homeowner and we’re like,John Harcar (18:10)
HahahaRight.
Nah, Nah.
Kate Loeb (18:35)
We’ve found this, this is what’s going on. Our plan is to fix it according to code. Are you good with that?John Harcar (18:42)
Okay, so, Kate, let me ask you this. Out of your years, what seems like you guys have great growth, you guys have a great business, you’ve learned a lot of stuff, what are maybe one or two things that you contribute your success to? Maybe it’s a mindset, maybe it’s a process. What do you contribute where you guys have gotten to?Kate Loeb (18:51)
Thanks.For us, it’s really ⁓ it’s consistency in our approach to clients. I think that you’re only
good as the last client says you are. And so really making sure to treat every single client like they are the only person in the world. Like you answer their phone calls, you answer their texts, you you you answer a quick.
You answer true and you shovel while the piles are small. I think that’s the best way to go through anything in life. Brian and I have been successful because we are both very strong personality individuals. You could call us both alphas. And so how we have kind of mitigated that is just by, we both stay in our own lanes. He handles X, Y, and Z and I handle A, B, And we defer to each other.
John Harcar (19:33)
Yeah, for sure.Okay.
Kate Loeb (19:56)
when those lanes cross. And I think that’s really helped the subs understand, you know, who’s in charge of what, it helps the client understand who’s in charge of what. And then there’s nothing dropped or crossed over that way. But yeah.John Harcar (20:11)
Yeah, clear expectations, clear communication, you know, that’s really huge. So ifthere’s some folks out there that, you know, maybe are thinking about getting into the design and renovation business, like what’s kind of one thing you’d let them know to set them up for success?
Kate Loeb (20:21)
Mm-hmm.I would get as much experience as you can before you put your blood, sweat, tears, and money into starting a company. ⁓ I would make sure that from the start, you make sure that your branding is on point, that everything is congruent so that you’re not mistaken for a fly-by-night chuck-in-the-truck, especially down here in Texas. ⁓
John Harcar (20:53)
Check the trick. I love that.Kate Loeb (20:56)
But I really, I think it’s really important that you get experience before you start trying to gain experience on other people’s homes. Other people’s homes is not your playground. It is not where you’re supposed to become educated. ⁓ That’s why I feel very fortunate that we flipped so many houses and then I sat across the desk from someone with so much education, you know, really for the first like eight years of me doing this. Yeah, get your experience in your.Cut your teeth on your own dime, not somebody else’s.
John Harcar (21:28)
Findyourself someone that’s doing what you want to do and learn the right way and have the cheat code.
Kate Loeb (21:32)
Yeah.Yeah. I have people call me often, I would say a couple of times a year asking if they can shadow us. ⁓ And it’s cool. I mean, it’s the best form of flattery,
John Harcar (21:41)
Nice.I’m about to say that
that shows that you guys are doing something right. I love it.
Kate Loeb (21:48)
Yeah, yeah, I would hope so.And hopefully they all leave ⁓ those shadowing moments, understanding a little bit more in depth as to like what’s expected in this industry and what you need to set yourself apart.
John Harcar (22:02)
If people are out there, they’re in the Houston area, they wanna work with you, they want you to come and design and renovate their house, how do they get in touch?Kate Loeb (22:09)
⁓The best way would be to go visit our website at
and just fill out one of the contact forms and we will call you within 24 hours.
John Harcar (22:21)
perfect. And I think we havesome of your contact information. You know, we’ll put that all in the show notes. Kate, thank you so much for for coming on and sharing and you know, guys at home, you know, I hope you learned, you learned a little bit. I hope that you know, if you have any needs in that area, reach out. They sound like a fantastic company. I’m sure they’re the you know, the White Glove service will help you so much. Kate, thank you again. Alright guys, we’ll see you on the next one. Cheers.
Kate Loeb (22:27)
Thank you.Thank you so much.
