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PHOTOGRAPH BY CATHY HEINZ
Taking the Road Less Traveled When the housing crash hit, many businesses ‘remade’
themselves, changed or redefined their product offerings; instead, Burton Homes became more committed to their values and the time-tested fundamentals of successfully build- ing a strong company. The idea of restructuring business practices in an effort to
compete on price alone and sign more contracts was never an option for Burton, who values fairness and quality construction in regard to materials, sub-contractors and engineering above all. Instead of changing their core values for doing business, Burton and his team’s focus remained on building premium- quality homes to ensure long-term confidence among existing and potential buyers. “While we may build fewer and some smaller homes, we will
never build cheap houses. We will always be a premium quality builder,” Christopher Burton, president and owner, says. “Our relationships with our subcontractors, clients, and employees are meant to last a lifetime, so we build homes consistent with those values.”
Some Things Aren’t Optional Although the decline in the housing market forced Burton to
tighten overhead and develop more effective building strategies, the builder rejected the idea of turning specialized employees into jacks-of-all-trades, required to take on additional responsibilities as a result of downsizing. Burton’s staff presently consists of eight full-time employees, ranging in specialty from client services, to designers to superintendents. “The functions to building a house haven’t changed,” Burton
explains. “We’ve retained and hired highly-skilled individu- als who are great at their specialized tasks. I’ve surrounded myself with loyal people, who possess exceptional skills and
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are passionate about the vision for our company. That’s how you ensure the team will always get better.” The company used the real estate slowdown as an oppor-
tunity to streamline processes and implement new systems to improve client satisfaction and reduce build times. Examples of these improvements include the addition of a Director of Client Services and a contracted agreement with a design studio in Orlando to facilitate new home design options.
Hard Times Call For Hard Work At the height of the boom, Burton estimates that his company
was constructing over 40 residential homes per year ranging in price from $350 thousand to over a million dollars, and roughly six to eight commercial projects per year through Burton Commercial Development. “Although it would be nice to still be building at that level, that’s
not the reality of today,” Burton, who founded the company in 1998 at the age of 24, says. That, however, doesn’t mean the team behind Christopher Burton Homes hasn’t increased their efforts. Burton works everyday, including long hours on weekends,
evenings and days in between. Instead of hiding behind the negative press, the Burton team decided to take the bull by the horns and try to find people who want to build houses. One of the biggest things they learned is to stay positive, be consistent and work hard. “There are more houses being sold than we can build,” Burton
adds. “We just want to help those clients looking to build their dream home more affordably then they ever imagined.”
Progressive Marketing Efforts Defying industry trends, Tom Davis, vice president and
director of business development and residential sales for Christopher Burton Homes, helped the company to develop new media and marketing strategies as a way to stay relevant and reach
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