At the Intersection of Art and Industry

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Leading with Integrity

At Residential Design Services, Creative Vision Meets Flawless Execution to Transform Houses into Homes

Whether you love them, hate them, or have never actually watched them, you can’t deny that reality TV design shows have left an indelible impression on the home buying public. Home design is hot, thanks to HGTV and a phalanx of social media personalities who all send the same message: Designing your perfect home is a dreamy, delightful, straightforward process that always ends in tears of rapturous joy.

You’re welcome. We like making you laugh out loud.

In the real world, awakening to the realities of new home design involves a precise alignment of expectations between an owner’s personal vision and its execution. Thankfully, Residential Design Services is here to lead that delicate dance, and dramatically increase the chance that the process will end in happy tears.

“A lot of things that look straightforward from the street are actually very complicated to execute,” admitted Kendall Hoyd, president of the Anaheim, California-based firm. “Our ability to get that design or aesthetic created in their home the way the homebuyer saw it in their design appointment is an intersection of art and Industry that makes us special.”

A provider of design services to some of the country’s largest, most esteemed production home builders, RDS combines a team of professional designers and skilled craftspeople to make buyers’ dreams come to life. When the interior finish products in all their sizes, colors, patterns, and textures combine to realize the buyer’s vision, both the builder and RDS have a happy customer.

“The thing that really defines our place in the market is our ability to take what is a creative, personal process of developing a vision for an aesthetic for the inside of a house and turn it into operational excellence that gets the right materials to the right place with the right installation instructions in the hands of skilled installers and gets it in the house in a way the homebuyer envisioned,” he noted.

RDS does that in more than 1,500 homes a month throughout California, Arizona, and Texas with plans to expand into a number of other markets throughout the country.

Creating Synergy Through Acquisition

Earlier this year, company parent Select Interior Concepts executed a successful IPO. The move, said Hoyd, will give RDS access to capital to support aggressive expansion plans. “Actually, we've been in that process since the end of last year but being publicly traded will accelerate our ability to raise capital and make the acquisitions we need to put our nationwide growth strategy in place.”

The December 2017 acquisition of Phoenix, Arizona’s Greencraft Interiors, a premier cabinet installer and design center operator, kicked off the Residential Design Services acceleration plan. It dovetails with the 2018 acquisition of Summit Stoneworks, an Austin, Texas fabricator and installer of stone surfaces. “That combination of expertise will allow us to develop a very valuable opportunity for home builders because when cabinet and countertop installations are integrated, you can take a significant number of days out of the construction schedule,” he noted.

RDS operates in a highly fragmented market in which the top 10 companies represent less than 20 percent of the country’s market share. “The vast majority of the business in floor, countertop, and cabinet installation is done by companies with revenue between 20 and 50 million dollars,” Hoyd pointed out. “We are finding that, as our builder customers get bigger through consolidation in their own industry, they prefer to deal with bigger, more substantial companies as trade partners. We're following that momentum with our own strategy to make ourselves the premier scaled partner for interior finishes for national home builders.”

Residential Design Services identifies the best companies in the building trades and works to bring them on as part of the team. “We allow them to continue to operate in a way that has made them successful while providing the benefits of scale that a $500 million to a billion dollar company can provide: additional purchasing economies, better systems development, better integration, better human resource strategies, those kinds of things that a big company can provide, while also still allowing our newly acquired partners to operate successfully and in a market responsive fashion in each of the areas in which they operate.”

In addition to broadening their geographic reach through acquisition, adding products is helping the firm reach their growth goals. Cabinets are a big initiative for 2018.  Channel diversification is also a key part of the firm’s strategic plan, and as such, they are actively working to increase their new construction and remodel multifamily presence, in addition to single-family builders.

“We’re targeting the addition of more multifamily projects to our mix.  We like the scale, the potential for national relationships, and the fact that it provides some diversification in end markets.”

The firm has identified 30 markets across the country with significant single and multifamily opportunities. In each, Hoyd said, “there's both an urban and suburban growth aspect to the residential market, and we expect to be able to address both of those.”

Happy Builders, Happy Buyers

At present, Residential Design Services operates design centers in California, Nevada, Arizona, and Texas. At each center, proprietary software gives homebuyers real-time visualization and pricing of their countertop, cabinet, and flooring selections.“

“Because we have software that provides access to material and labor quotes and we price those in real time, we're able to cut down on the number of appointments that a design studio customer would have to make to complete the process.” RDS is working with software developers on a next generation of the software that will add virtual reality to the experience.

In linking the best craftspeople and the most creative designers, Residential Design Services takes on one of the most challenging aspects of home building. “The process of translating highly personal design vision and concepts into properly installed interior finishes that reflect that vision, and the ability to do that at scale really sets us apart,” Hoyd said.

“We call it turning a house into a home.” We call it cause for a little weep of joy.