As I ponder on what to write for remodeling or construction of your home, I had to refer back to a conversation I recently had on the need to rebuild a town – our town of Blanco. Concepts are similar, and everything starts with analysis, planning, and fulfillment. So in continuing with that logic, I came up with the following;

First off, we have to analyze what needs to be done. Did you know our town of Blanco had eight businesses shut down in 2010? We have three more shutting down at the end of January. Why? Did they shut down due to economy, high rent, landlords that did not communicate or understand needs, no business, or what? What can be done to rebuild the loss of these businesses?

The planning stage is what has happened and what do we do to help fix it? When I think about Blanco and the planning stage, I flash back to the old days of barn raising. The town folks all came together to aid a family in the need to build a barn. We have empty buildings and offices popping up all over. I heard one of our City Council members say “our town is folding up”. So let’s put a plan together. Shop local, support your local contractors and real estate agents, and other businesses. A group of us from Blanco recently attended a meeting to look at ways to help businesses. One suggestion was for people to share rent to help defer cost. The ideal plan was to have an area where rent was reasonable enough for a start up company to get their business off the ground and then move on, similar to a co-op concept. We just don’t have the ideal space to start this type of concept. Hard times have finally reached Blanco. People should be working together to resolve rental issues, bank notes, and more. Prices on real estate have dropped tremendously, but most buildings still sit empty due to the high note sellers still have on them. The city of Blanco has a master plan. Signage is still in the planning stage. As a business owner, we all must have signs to advertise our business and to indicate that we are open or on duty. Without signs, we might as well shut down. Hopefully in 2011 our city will have a new sign ordinance and updates to the UDC for signs. Blanco has a lot of new people coming in and wanting to make changes without doing the analysis. You must always do the analysis to see the impact on the building of a relationship, business impact, and acceptance of the town per the guidelines and more.

As we understand the analysis and planning stages, we are now ready to tackle the fulfillment of rebuilding a town. Fulfillment for 2011 starts with working with existing businesses to keep their doors open. Just as a remodel, the bones and structure are there, you just need to work out the details for change. The next thing is to help fill the empty buildings. Can the landlords work with their current tenants to keep them? Can the sellers work out lease purchase, rentals, or lower the asking prices?

Rebuilding a town has the foundation. It just needs the help of all of us to work together on the analysis, planning, and fulfillment stages. You can not have groups working from their own plan and not the full plan.

It’s like the house, and you have 4 crews each putting up the 4 walls. If they don’t communicate, plan, and coordinate with each other, the 4 walls will not come together. One wall might even fall.

Personally, I have worked on many teams within Blanco. Most work well together and others refuse to accept the plan. Plans don’t happen over night. They take time to develop. During the development process, many changes occur - just as designing that house, how many changes does the home owner make? If the process is not thought out well, the change orders could cost the home owner thousands of dollars. So going back to rebuilding your town, participate, communicate, research, and know what the final chain reaction can really be if you just react. It is critical that all teams come together in this time and work together to rebuild our town. Attend local city meetings, organizations, shop and support local, landlords – work and communicate with your tenants to keep them, sellers of buildings - let us know how we can help. Bottom line….get involved and let’s rebuild our town even stronger.

For ALL Your Real Estate and Building needs or questions, call Debbie at (830) 833-4249 / (713)818-6658 or debbie@vallonerealestate.net