In this snack-sized episode of Home: The Second Story, we talk about uncertainty and how much of it shows up when homeowners are deciding whether to renovate, build new, or take on a custom residential project. Big projects come with big unknowns. There is uncertainty in the market, in the environment, in pricing, in interest rates, and in our own lives. No one has a crystal ball. No architect can predict exactly what will happen with school systems, real estate, gas prices, construction costs, or a family’s future needs. What we do have is experience working inside uncertainty every day.
Uncertainty is not new. It can feel like this moment is more unstable than any other, but every era has had its own major disruptions. The 2008 housing crash changed the path of Sheri’s career. COVID changed the way projects were built, priced, and planned. Those events were not neat, singular moments. They created ripple effects that are still shaping the construction industry, especially in pricing, supply chains, and client expectations.
We also talk about the uncertainty that lives inside the project itself. In renovation work, we can plan carefully and still discover hidden problems the first time a contractor opens a wall. There may be rot, structural issues, or conditions that no one could have seen ahead of time. The way to prepare is not to pretend those surprises will not happen. The way to prepare is to build in contingency money, extra time, and emotional capacity.
On new custom homes, uncertainty often shows up through cost tracking and decision making. Even when most choices have been made, a team may need to pause, review the budget, and adjust. Sometimes that means removing a design feature that would have been beautiful but is not essential. That does not mean the team failed. It means the team stayed aware, communicated, and corrected course before the end of the project.
We also remind homeowners to look at how they already handle uncertainty in daily life. A family vacation can be disrupted by weather. A dinner plan can change when the grocery store is missing an ingredient. These moments require contingency planning, flexibility, and calm decision making. A residential project is the same kind of problem, just at a much larger scale.
The key is knowing your own tolerance for change. A fully custom home involves the most decisions and the most uncertainty. A renovation, semi-custom home, or existing house may be a better fit depending on your capacity, life stage, and appetite for decision making. There are ways to reduce the unknowns, but there is no way to remove them completely.
We close by talking about timing. Many clients wait because they hope prices will come down, but construction rarely gets cheaper over time. Commodities like lumber can fluctuate, but labor shortages, manufacturing costs, and long-term market pressures continue to push prices up. The best time to do a project is usually now or ten years ago. A strong team will not promise that nothing will go wrong. A strong team will help you prepare, react well, and keep moving when surprises happen.
(00:00) Welcome & introducing today's topic: uncertainty
(01:15) Why clients want someone to tell them what to do
(02:52) Career milestones: the 2008 crash & COVID's lasting impact
(04:05) Supply chain ripple effects and permanent price changes
(05:26) Two questions: should I do the project, and how do I design for longevity?
(06:22) Renovation surprises: why contingency budgets matter
(08:02) Managing budget in new construction — staying aligned as a team
(10:43) Drawing parallels: how you handle everyday uncertainty applies here
(13:01) Knowing your tolerance for change and decision fatigue
(15:33) Why waiting for prices to drop is usually a mistake
(17:53) The skilled trades shortage and rising labor costs
(19:30) Final thoughts: making uncertainty more manageable
Navigating Uncertainty
Speakers: Marilyn Moedinger & Sheri Scott
Marilyn Moedinger (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to a snack-sized episode of Home: The Second Story. I'm Marilyn Moedinger with Runcible Studios in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and Boston, Massachusetts.
Sheri Scott (00:11):
And I am Sheri Scott with Springhouse Architects in Cincinnati, Ohio. And today, we're going to talk about uncertainty. There's so much uncertainty when you're going into a big project like this.
A couple of things off the top of my head, the market, everyone's talking about uncertainty in the market, in the world, and environmental uncertainty, we have a lot of that. And I would put in that list, uncertainty of your own life, your own microcosm.
If you're working on your own residential project, I don't know, I mean, I'm already 55 and I'm not sure what my life's going to look like in 20 years (laughs). I hope I do by now, but you just never know.So, there is a lot of uncertainty to making these long-term decisions.
Marilyn Moedinger (01:00):
Yeah, and I think, is this the part where we reveal we're going to get out our crystal balls and say what? (Laughs).
Sheri Scott (01:06):
Yes, 100%. This is what is going to happen-
Marilyn Moedinger (01:10):
Give us a call.
Sheri Scott] (01:11):
This is what's going to happen in your town, with your school systems, with real estate.
Marilyn Moedinger (01:15):
With gas prices, we know right here. So, yeah, I guess that's part of the point.If someone really did have a crystal ball and could tell you – this is sometimes what I tell my clients when we're deep into trying to figure out how to make decisions about what to do. Something as basic as should I renovate or should I build new? Should I do this project at all?I mean, I'm having a lot of those conversations right now.
Sheri Scott (01:44):
Me too.
Marilyn Moedinger (01:45):
I think sometimes there's a level of frustration on client's part that I'm not able to provide, even though they know that I can't. Just like we're just looking for someone to tell us what to do.And my joke always is, well, if I had a crystal ball that knew exactly all those things, I would not be working as an architect.
The government would have snapped me up long ago, and I would be secret service level, the fancy glasses and whatever. What we do have, though, is a professional lifetime of working in uncertainty.So, now that we have a sense that now is more uncertain than it ever has been. And 10 years ago, things were so much easier to understand.
Well, they're easier to understand because we've been through them.10 years ago, things were still really uncertain. Just pick a year in modern memory, and there's a lot of things that are going on.We just tend to forget that it's sort of always been a little rough.
Sheri Scott (02:52):
Life is unpredictable. It just is. And in my career, I know there have been two milestones.First being 2008 and the housing crash. So, being a residential architect at that time, it changed the path of my career, and nobody knew.Nobody knew. The longer you're alive, you know that things come in cycles. They come and go.So, it is going to correct in some way. We don't know how, but everything changes.
The second milestone, I would say, in my career was COVID.And even through this podcast, we've spoken to many people that started their project either during COVID or COVID hit right after they started, and talk about uncertainty.
And there was absolutely no way for them to know ahead of time that that was coming.Now, we can look back at it and say, okay, because of those things, we've changed our practices. But talk about uncertainty in those times. We didn't even know where lumber was coming from.
Marilyn Moedinger (04:05):
Yep, yep. I think that's a great point. And I think in some ways, we are still dealing with the aftershocks of going through that.So, that was not a singular event, kind of like the housing crash in 2008 – that was not a singular event and then the next day, we started picking up the pieces.
We had no idea what was going on. We had no idea what to do next.Nobody knew. It's not like it happened one day, and then the next day, we were, "Well, let's pull ourselves up by the bootstraps."We didn't know.
And same thing with COVID. I mean that was a developing situation and it had all these ripple effects that no one could have predicted, and in many ways, we're still dealing with all that. The supply chain has kind of corrected itself, but there are changes in the market and in the industry that will not go back to the way they were.
Sheri Scott (04:58):
Pricing, for sure. Pricing is just different.It's higher. Once people have the opportunity to increase prices, it's really hard to bring them back down. So, that's on a more kind of global level, obviously, that kind of uncertainty where at our desk and in our profession, we can help guide people through those things, but we have no control over them.
Marilyn Moedinger (05:25):
No.
Sheri Scott (05:26):
And then as we get more granular down to your life and your lifestyle and what changes are you going to have, life changes. Life is uncertain. So, a couple of different directions to take this, like, do I do the project or not? That has a lot of uncertainty in it. And then if I decide to do the project, how do I design? How do I design for the longevity of a home that should stand for hundreds of years?
Marilyn Moedinger (05:55):
Or at least my lifetime, I think that's what matters here. So, for example, in renovations, which we do a lot of, we talk a lot about: we make all the plans in the world, we figure everything out ahead of time, and the first moment that the contractors swing the sledgehammer and open up a wall, we discover new problems that we had no ability to predict.
Sheri Scott (06:21):
Right. That's uncertainty.
Marilyn Moedinger (06:22):
We don't have X-ray glasses. I don't even want X-ray glasses if I could, but that moment – so we're preparing for that and that's outside of all these macroeconomic situations.So, the way we prepare for that is we say, well, A, there will be surprises, so get ready. We will not be able to not have surprises. So, there will be surprises.
Number two, the thing that fixes problems is money and time. So, let's set aside extra money in a contingency so that when we discover that the sill is rotted out all the way around the back of the house, and we have to jack up the house and put in a new sill and it's an extra $15,000… that it's not a fun day at the job site, but the homeowner says, "This is really awful, but you know what, I'm really glad we discovered this and I've got money set aside to handle it".
And also, so time's the other one: understanding that the renovation is supposed to take 8 months, but prepare for it to take 12. Not because anyone is goofing around or dilly dallying or doing the wrong things, but because that's life, and things come up and you have to deal with it.
So, we've talked about interviewing contractors, we've talked about where you say, it's not that nothing bad happened, it's how did the team recover?How did you prepare for the certainty that something will go awry, and we don't know what it is yet?And that's it. You prepare with money and time and emotionally, right? (Laughs).
Sheri Scott (08:02):
Yes. And emotionally, probably more important. And it's not only in renovations, of course. I did a site walk with a client and a contractor and we are, gosh, we're probably 65, 70% of the way through, but we have made 95% of the decisions. But now, the costs of everything are kind of catching up.
So, this was kind of our last opportunity to make changes to be sure that we're going to be in budget when the end of the project hits.And so, that's a good example of a team working together to forecast, not that we're going to forecast every unknown thing that comes up or every price change that's going to come up, but it means we're keeping our eyes open and we're looking for these opportunities to stop, take a look around, okay, where are we?Where are we on budget? What decisions do we still have to make?
And we made some adjustments.We took out a couple of ceiling treatments that it's going to be a blank ceiling, which is okay. I mean, what we had designed was way better but this is the reality of the project. Like that ceiling in those two places is not going to happen.Anyone that walks in that project isn't going to know.
I'll know what we had planned for that and maybe in three years, they'll have some capacity to add some more things in, and that's something that can be changed in the future. So, the uncertainty in new construction, when you're doing a truly custom home, a high-end custom home, all the way through, there are some uncertainties with cost when you're doing a cost-plus project.
And the way that you combat that is that you keep your eyes open, you keep communication open. You're open to changes, changes to bring the budget back into line because that does tend to throw our clients sometimes, especially toward the end of a project.And as much as we can say in the beginning, we're going to work on this budget the entire way through, it never feels good. It never feels good.
And it feels like it's uncertain and it feels like we didn't have a handle on it, which is not necessarily the case. But if we can take our time step by step and self-correct when we can, it'll make the end of the project great.
Marilyn Moedinger (10:43):
Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the tools that I help my clients sharpen is I encourage them to look at other parts of their life where they deal with uncertainty every day, and see how they can take those methods of coping and dealing with that and bring it to this process as well.
So, for example, things that may feel really certain just because you're used to doing them all the time, actually have all kinds of uncertainty. Let's say planning a family vacation, and you've got it all planned out.
You've got your flight tickets, you've got the hotel, you've made some plans for some different tours that you're going to do, and all of a sudden, a hurricane comes through and you have to … let's say you're already there and a hurricane is coming through, what do you do?Do you stay? Do you go? What's the weather going to do?Can I get out? What am I doing? I mean, that's an extreme example, but you figure it out, and you deal with what's coming along.
The other situations that are more every day, like for example, okay, I know on Monday nights, we always make X, Y, Z for dinner, great. You go to the grocery store to get the supplies, and the grocery store doesn't have one ingredient that you absolutely need because their truck didn't show up that day.
Well, that's not your fault. You're not a bad planner, you're not bad at budgeting, you don't have a terrible team, whatever. You are just caught up in some other thing that had nothing to do with you. So, you have a couple of choices.Well, do I go to another grocery store? That takes time. Can I do that?Do I switch the meal for tonight? Do we order pizza? Whatever.
So, that's contingency planning. And people do it all day, every day, whether there's a hurricane on vacation or whether the grocery store didn't have the ingredient I needed. And we're just here doing the same thing, just on a scale that is new to most homeowners.
They've not worked at the scale, which also means it's a lot more money. It's one thing if you're like "Well, they didn't have the special cheese I needed. Okay, well, I'll go over here and it's $5 more.Well, it's not the end of the world." It's smaller dollars when we're talking about dinner. So, I get that. I get that.
Sheri Scott (13:01):
No, but I like that example because it brings up for our listeners to understand what your tolerance of change is. What's your tolerance to go through these things?And I know I've shared that I have not built my own house because I feel like my professional life is full of changes and unknowns and things moving very quickly.
And so, I don't have the tolerance right now in my life to make all of those decisions to pivot when I need to because I'm using up all of that mental capacity in my professional life. So, if you know what your tolerance is, then that will help you decide what project you're going to do.
Are you going to stay in your house and redo your kitchen rather than doing a full new custom home? You might end up doing a semi-custom home instead of a full-on like you choose every single thing. Maybe you find a semi-custom builder who's going to limit your decisions or your choices.So, there are ways to mitigate the uncertainty even in these projects.
Marilyn Moedinger (14:19):
Absolutely. And I think knowing yourself, it's a theme we've talked about in the past as well – knowing yourself and your capacity whether it's because there's a lot going on in family or whether it's just a time of life or whatever, it's really important.
Sheri, you and I do custom homes.That's the most custom, the most number of decisions, the most intensive process that you can go through. You can just buy a house, and you don't have to make any of those decisions.
Sheri Scott (14:50):
(Laughs) You can.I've heard that.
Marilyn Moedinger (14:52):
You can do that.And there's everything in between, semi-custom as you're talking about. But I think the other thing here is that people … I've noticed over the years, my clients get really nervous about, is this the right time to do a project?Because maybe prices are going to come down. They never do;they never do. The only thing that does are things like commodities. So, lumber.
So, there was a time during COVID when lumber was 4x, and that was crazy and then it came down, and I remember it because my client had to buy a lumber package at that exact time, and we could not wait-
Sheri Scott (15:32):
But you didn't know it was going to come down.
Marilyn Moedinger (15:33):
No, right. So, yes, lumber fluctuates.It's a commodity, so it's fluctuating on the markets every minute. But now that manufacturers know that consumers are able or willing begrudgingly to pay X dollars, they're not going to next year make that same product, X minus 20%.They're just not.
So, I always say that the best time to do a project is right now or 10 years ago. I have clients who have put off their project three times because they're worried about pricing.If they would have done it the first time, it would have cost less than half of what it would cost today. And it is so devastating. And every time they delay it again, I'm like, “Guys …”
Sheri Scott (16:28):
And so, now we have people saying, “Oh, no way I'm going to build now. It's so expensive.”It's going to continue. It's going to just continue. I don't understand how it works, somebody smarter than me knows how it all like stair steps and catches up, but it will never be cheaper than it is today.
Marilyn Moedinger (16:45):
It won't. And I think a couple of things that lead into that. And again, someone smarter than me as well has to explain this in more detail.But some of the things that aren't going away, the trade shortage.
There has been a shortage of tradesmen for 30 years, like that trend. So, if everyone goes to school and learns a trade tomorrow, we're 15 or 20 years away from having the same level of trade workforce that we had back in the day.
So, there aren't enough qualified plumbers, electricians, carpenters, all this. This is what I hear from every single contractor that I work with. There's no one to hire.All the kids want to be content creators. That's what they all say.
[Laughter]
So, we'll see the AI backlash is saying that, well, the safe place to work is in the trades.Well, okay, let's just say that everybody goes to trade school next year. Like I said, you can't just come out being a master carpenter. You need 20 years before you're a master.So, I think that trend is something that will continue to push labor prices because labor is so squeezed.
Sheri Scott (17:53):
Because the people that can will charge more, and good on them, but that's the cycle we're in right now.
Marilyn Moedinger (18:03):
And labor is more expensive than material. So, that flip-flopped sometime in the last century.That's why you see older historic projects with all these amazing details and all this stuff because labor was cheap.
Sheri Scott (18:15):
Oh gosh, tell me about it.
Marilyn Moedinger (18:16):
And it's just not that way anymore. And not that materials are cheap, but they're cheaper than labor. So, I feel that's the only trend along those lines that I can really speak to.There are other factors around manufacturing and supply chain, and all these kinds of things that are also impacting material costs.
And then, of course, interest rates. So, that's one thing that does go up and down.And I certainly don't know about this either. Welcome to our podcast where we talk about things that we don't know about (laughs).
Sheri Scott (18:45):
Things we don't know. We don't really understand.
[Laughter]
Marilyn Moedinger (18:49):
But I mean, interest rates, I don't know, are we ever going to see 2% again? That was such an aberration.And I think people have readjusted their expectations so much. They're like, "5%, that's insane.We're not doing anything." I'm like, well, when I bought my first house, which wasn't that long ago, it was 7.5%, and we weren't flipping out. We were like, "Well, this is what it is."My parents were like, "It was 17% when we …"
Sheri Scott (19:18):
Right, I know.My parents, too.
Marilyn Moedinger (19:21):
Right. So, I think they could come down but waiting for interest rates to go back to 2% or 3% I think is kind of a fool's errand.
Sheri Scott (19:30):
Agreed. So, uncertainty, I mean, there's a lot of it, especially in this market that we're in, in this field that we're in, there is a lot of uncertainty. But there are ways to make it more palatable.There are ways to curb the ill effects of bad uncertainty, and there are always some good surprises, too.
Marilyn Moedinger (19:58):
That's right. Let's not forget the good surprises, where you open up a wall and you find some amazing thing that you decide to reveal. In Boston, the joke is always that you're going to find the paintings that were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner heist.No one has found those yet, as far as we know, anyway.
[Laughter]
But being prepared for that, both good and bad, and being surrounded with a team who's being realistic, so not pessimistic, like, oh, well, everything's … not being Eeyore about things, but also being realistic with you and making sure, hey, do you have that contingency? It needs to be, for a renovation, 20% to 30% of the cost on an old house, you need to have that set aside and being realistic with you.
And then the old adage of, it's not that nothing bad is going to happen, it's how you react to it, I think is really important.And we're like a broken record. We're here to help our clients get through that process, and a good design team is all about that.
Sheri Scott (21:04):
Yeah, agreed.
Marilyn Moedinger (21:06):
Thanks for joining us today on Home: The Second Story for a quick snack. If you have questions for us or topics you'd like us to cover, or if you're interested in being a guest, reach out to us at admin@htsspodcast.com, and follow us on Instagram. We'll see you next time.
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