Long Term …

That's how his license plate reads. And he means it. Mike Garcia has been crafting and building custom homes in Northern Virginia for more than 30 years, 26 of them as owner of Mike Garcia Homes.

While 30 years of ups and downs in the building industry have taught Garcia plenty, none of those lessons have made quite the impression as lessons he learned from his father, owner of Columbia Tree Service, one of the oldest tree services in Northern Virginia

“My dad taught us from the beginning that working hard and doing a quality job every day, every time, enables you to last longer and be stronger than many others,” he says. These lessons were learned in lean years as well as years of plenty.

And last longer and stay stronger is exactly what Garcia continues to do today amidst the current downswing in the housing market. While others are hearing the funereal sounds of a slow demise, Garcia hears the tinkling of a new era dawning. He hears the echoes of the past beckoning builders to return to the days of crafting truly quality well-built homes.

“To see the future, you have to look behind you ... where you've been” says Garcia. He explains that during the recession of the 1980s when interest rates were at an all-time high, many builders were pulling back and cutting their losses. “We stayed steady, concentrating on maintaining quality craftsmanship and our reputation.” And he feels that is the direction in which the industry is headed today.

“During the boom, many builders were building hundreds of houses each year and often, quality would suffer,” says Garcia. He says this was primarily because the work force was in such demand that workers could move from builder to builder in search of higher wages, better hours or a vehicle to take home each night

He goes on to explain that in the current downswing, that is no longer true, resulting in the quality craftsmen staying with their firms, and not moving from builder to builder. At the same time, builders are turning their attention back to constructing fewer homes, but homes with greater quality – quality provided by the true craftsmen of the industry... which is exactly what Mike Garcia Homes has done throughout its 26 years.

Understanding the ups and downs of the industry has kept Mike Garcia Homes in the forefront of the custom homebuilding industry. “You have to diversify ... come up with other ways to keep the doors open, people employed and overhead down.” To that end, the firm opened its remodeling division several years ago, and most recently its commercial division.
Twenty-six years and more than 400 houses later, Mike Garcia continues to hold true to the principle that hard work and doing a good job will bring success. He emphasizes that to each employee and gives that guarantee to each home buyer.

Garcia believes the downswing in housing in Northern Virginia is slowly turning around and “leveling out.” He says that now is the best time to build a custom home because even though labor and land costs have fallen, material costs have not, but in fact, have continued to rise.

“A custom home is likely to be the biggest expense people can make. It's an investment, much like a good stock,” says Garcia. “It will be there when you need it.”

Building quality homes, building quality relationships based upon lessons learned in childhood from his father that he is now passing on to his sons, both of whom have joined the firm he and his wife Robin, operate in Woodbridge

“I'm in it for the long term,” says Garcia. “I can't imagine the day I won't want to come into the office and look forward to meeting another buyer's dreams.”

– Susan L. Neer
Managing Editor