Inside Imagine Homes: Doing the Right Thing in Rentals & Renovations

At Imagine Homes, we are committed to delivering best-in-class experiences in each of our single-family rentals and renovations. We do not cut corners to save on costs—we do things the right way.

We caught up with John Steigerwald, Market Renovation Manager for Cincinnati, to get more insight into how we keep our edge over the competition by doing the right thing for our residents, vendors, and teammates.

My entire career has always been in the construction industry.

Construction work is ingrained in my identity—you can even say that it runs in my blood. Most of my relatives on my father’s side worked in commercial construction. So, it almost felt natural for me to start working in the construction industry even at a young age.

I learned how to swing a hammer in the field, and eventually, I started working several different jobs on mostly-commercial projects. From doing concrete work to hanging HVAC ductwork, I took charge of various maintenance jobs during and right after high school.

I believe in doing things the right way.

From my experience, some single-family rental companies won’t hesitate to cut a lot of corners to save on costs and maximize profits. They rely on band-aid solutions for various issues instead of fixing things the right way. It’s a business philosophy that didn’t sit right with me, so when I found Imagine Homes on Indeed I was immediately drawn to their core values.

Everyone at Imagine Homes is trying to do high-quality, best-in-class renovations. I knew they had results to back up their claims since I have actually walked a few homes with my previous boss and saw the quality of their work. I saw that Imagine Homes was really putting a lot of work and resources into these homes to make them nice and do things the right way. That’s the kind of business philosophy I can get behind.

When I applied to work with Imagine Homes, I really enjoyed meeting the team and thought it would be a good fit.

I’ve been with Imagine Homes for three years now. The upward mobility I saw within those three years was incredible. I got promoted from Assistant Project Manager to Project Manager and then to Market Manager for Cincinnati for Renovations.

In those same three years, our market in Cincinnati has grown a lot. When I first started here, we were only delivering four to six homes a month—if we were lucky.

Today, we’ve really increased our base of subcontractors and vendors and hired new employees as we grew to manage more projects. We’re now delivering anywhere from 10 to 15 houses a month. It’s been an interesting journey and I’m happy to be a part of it.

I oversee everything for Reno in the Cincinnati market.

I have two project managers and two project coordinators supporting me. We work with 50 different subs and vendors to get jobs done.

I manage everything from accounting, scheduling, doing inspections on homes, writing scopes-of-work, to doing quality control on the back-end. Most importantly, I stay on top of my team and make sure that they’re on task and they’re growing with the company.

The Cincinnati Renovations Team has a multi-faceted approach to project management.

At a very general level, I know some of the markets operate a little bit differently. But really, there are a few different ways to approach revenue at a company like Imagine Homes. As an organization, you can have your project managers oversee every facet of the job or hire true general contractors who will do the same.

Our approach in Cincinnati is kind of a mix of the two. We have several contractors that manage the bulk of the work, and we call them GCs even though they’re not true general contractors. But, we also have a few different subs and vendors that work around GCs. We actually coordinate and work with these subs and vendors in-house, so we don’t just have one contact that takes care of everything on the job. Instead, we have one contact that takes care of the bulk of the work, then a few other subs and vendors that take care of things like garage doors and fencing and things that may not be in the wheelhouse of our GCs.

Our multi-faceted approach allows us to build relationships with companies, which helps us knock down pricing and get negotiated rates on specialty things such as garage doors.

Another thing that we do differently as an organization than some other companies is having our GCs procure most of their materials. We used to buy all the materials for our contractors on the job. However, managing the procurement of materials was a heavy lift. To enable ourselves to manage more projects, we pay the GCS a little bit more for the materials and give them a markup, creating a win-win situation.

Before any renovation, I focus on creating an accurate scope of work for the project.

We spend a lot of time getting quotes from contractors and reviewing inspection reports to make sure that we don’t miss anything. That comes with a lot of work from following up and calling people to get questions answered and locking in pricing on certain facets of the job.

When it’s time for the renovation proper, our focus shifts to coordinating all the different subs and vendors we have working on the project. We make sure they can work well together and avoid getting in each other’s way.

For example, the concrete contractors might be doing the driveway, but that prevents the garage door contractors from getting in there to install a new door. We have to keep those things in mind during the project and make sure that we’re staying on top of that. It’s our job to make sure that these guys are on time and on budget. We have to watch everything very closely.

During the job, our rule of thumb is to make sure that someone’s out there at least once a week to check things out to make sure the quality is being maintained across the board. We also need to ensure that everyone is working in a timely manner to meet our timelines. Towards the end of the job, we are all about quality control and finishing touches to ensure that we’re delivering a top-shelf home for our residents.

We have a great group of trade partners that really make everything we do possible.

The relationships we build with our trade partners mean everything to us. Everyone we work with out in the field swinging hammers is really the backbone of renovations.

Working with someone for three or four years, you build a solid business relationship or partnership with them. There’s a lot of situations in these jobs where things are coming down to the wire, and you really need to get things done quickly. Sometimes you have to call in a favor, and it’s always easier to do that when you’ve already built trust with them.

If the dumpster company doesn’t have any drivers that can make it to the job site, having a partner that can help you out is really invaluable. I know for a fact our partners, John Gauch and Susan with Bin There Dump That, are more than willing to get in the truck themselves or even make arrangements to help us out.

Things like that happen all the time with different GCs. Sometimes we have contractors struggling with various issues on the job. We cut them some slack and they return the favor to us later. For example, GCs are behind on their jobs and they’ve been struggling with hiring labor. So, we cut them a little slack on their timeline. In return, they might not hammer us as hard on a change order that would have cost us $500, they only charge us $200. It’s a partnership—it goes both ways.

One of the most rewarding parts of my job is seeing the breath of fresh air we bring to our communities.

It’s no secret that we buy some homes that need a little love. A lot of times, these homes have been an eyesore to the rest of the neighborhood and community. One of the most rewarding parts of my job is walking to these homes at the end of the project and seeing how nice they turned out.

I’ve had many neighbors stopping by to thank us for fixing up the eyesore that they’ve been looking at for years. They tell us how grateful they are that we finally cleaned up their street or the couple homes that were next to them that they were sick of looking at. That’s really gratifying and that’s where I think Renovations make the biggest difference in our community.

Working with my team is the best part of what I do.

I feel fortunate to be able to work with a great group of talented people every day and people who truly care about our team, our residents, and our community. They care about doing a good job and that’s what I’m most grateful for and the best thing about what I do here.

Imagine Homes is a great place to work. Most of it is because of people. We have a great team here that really cares about their work and that’s hard to find anywhere else. I can’t speak for other markets, but in Cincinnati, I can certainly say that we all get along. We all have fun working together.

Having a group of people that you enjoy working with and bosses that you respect and can work with makes for a good working environment. Everyone’s willing to lend a hand and help out. No one’s above taking out the trash.

Aside from that, the products and services we provide are top notch in our industry. It’s challenging and it’s also very rewarding to work in Imagine Homes—and I think a solid balance is key to being happy with your job and employment. Turning out these great products like we do at the end of the day is very rewarding.

The industry of single-family rentals and renovations keeps growing but Imagine Homes keeps its edge.

People choose to live in the homes we work on because we deliver a best-in-class product for our residents and provide great service for homeowners and residents alike.

We bought many homes from our competitors, and the difference between their finished product and ours is night and day. We hear horror stories about maintenance from some of our competitors.

At Imagine Homes, we really care about and try to take good care of our residents.

We provide the same experience for the people that are selling their homes—we make it really easy for them to get through the process. We try to make it as painless as possible.

We just make it easier with things like the Rently smart home system and higher-end finishes that not a lot of our competitors are offering. That’s really what puts us a step above a lot of our competitors.

There was a situation a while back where Resident Services was trying to place a family in a home. They wanted to be in a specific neighborhood and they liked a particular house because they were moving to be in a school district to better serve the needs of their child who had special needs.

Resident Services, Reno[vations], and even our RAM [Regional Acquisitions Manager] at the time, Justin, worked very hard to really push that placement ahead of schedule to get the family the house that they wanted to live in. That just goes to show how we are willing to go the extra mile, we really do care, and we are trying to work with people. This isn’t just a company that’s trying to make money hand over fist, doing whatever they can to sell rentals. We always try to help people out.

Interested in working with us? Let’s talk.

We’re looking for passionate individuals to join our Renovations team and help us deliver best-in-class homes and overall experience. If you think you fit the bill, let us know! We’d love to have you on board.

WORK WITH US