Dear Homeowner,


I have been blessed with many opportunities throughout my life. Many people look at me and see how young I am. I can not hide my youth. For some people they may connect my youth with inexperience. I would like to address this before I move forward.

Many “custom” or scattered lot builders build 3 to 4 homes a year. My team and I are currently building 20+ homes. Some homes would be categorized as mansions. We have another 17 under contract three are over 13,000 Finished sqft (three floors). We have had a study pace of 1 to 3 sales a month with 2 in November. We have many ANV architects to do custom changes and homes, yet we have a large library of homes. Most builders have closed shop in the recent economic crisis, and we also lost substantial cliental and though our expectations were much higher for sales in 2008 for starts in 2009. We are still expected to revenue over 18 million almost twice our 2007 revenues (about 30 homes). We are still expanding in one of the worst housing markets of all time.

Although we advertise heavily on TV, radio, and print most of our work comes from word of mouth and customer references. One key factor in our success is that I surrounded myself with very good people in the industry and offered them a partnership within my organization. Everyone in my organization gets a profit share, everyone.

I recruited the best field superintendents and construction managers in the industry by promising them not just a competitive salary but also giving them high bonuses if they are able to build a home fast and of great quality. The best can double or triple their base salary as well as receive large end of the year bonuses based on the revenue, speed of construction, quality, and homeowner satisfaction.

In many cases I didn’t find my team through the traditional head hunters and advertising avenues. I went to their offices and waited outside or went to the construction site and pleaded for a meeting in an attempt to convince them that the future of ANV was best for them and their family’s future.

I do not consider myself as an employer with employees, but a leader of a people. It is not just my abilities and experience that will build your home, it is a group of hand picked brilliant people as well. Most have a decade + in the industry and some with an opportunity of financial motivation no one has presented before.

My belief is that if I want to make many millions, I have to help make many a million. If the higher power chose me to be a golfer I would want to win the Masters, or if I was an actor I would want to win an Oscar. I am not, I have been blessed to be a homebuilder and my definition of winning is that when all is said and done our customers say to others “This is the home of my dreams, this is the home of my future, this is an ANV home.”



Background :



I graduated with an information systems degree and as an intern I was thrown into a huge room of cubicles filled with first generation Americans who spoke one language C++ (a computer coding language). The only thing I learned was that even though it paid well I would be stuck in that cubical and get out coded everyday, for very few of my god given abilities applied.

I had originally learned how to build a home with my father and when I graduated college my first job was at one of the nation’s largest builders as an assistant superintendent. I was there for a few months and an associate offered me a position at another nation wide builder. There is where I studied every aspect of home building.

My Second Position :

After just 8 months on the job the original head superintendent was fired and I was thrown into the mix as a temporary head superintendent on that construction site. As the schedules and quality started to improve the management decided to keep me as the head superintendent.

I had two assistants one assistant was to keep the schedules making sure vendors were on time and making adjustments to the schedule when things were delayed. The other superintendent was to keep track of the small items like a door knob loose on "lot 7" or a fireplace starter not working on "lot 12". The second superintendent would call the tradesman back one at a time for these little repairs. While it is the responsibility of the tradesman to do these repairs, it's difficult going out to a house to fix something when you could be going out to another house making money.


I changed the responsibilities of the two assistants and replaced their responsibilities to a craftsmen position commonly known in the industry as "punch out men". Basically getting them back to a hammer and nails approach and less phone, pen, and pad. It was an idea being passed around by the higher ups, though no other supers had done so, some already supported the idea.

I replaced the first assistant’s task with simple Excel and Visual Basic software I wrote with the help of my sister. The software gave the trades and the days needed to complete the task and if a vendor was behind on a home I would simply change the date and all following dates would adjust. I would get to work by 6am and have the new schedules posted near the model by 6:30am one copy for every tradesman.

The second assistant position was replaced once again by another very simple system. All I did was enter the lot # and the tradesman and it would sort the information by that specific lot or I could get the information by entering the specific tradesman.

Now, instead of calling back vendors for little problems the punch out man would do what he could to fix the problem and then called the tradesman if he could not. Things started to get finished much faster.

During this time the other punch out man would just go to previous customers and ask “is everything ok?” and take care of customers on the spot and also assist the other punch out man if needed.

With the punch out men fixing these little problems Tradesman would request my construction site because they wouldn’t have to go back as much to fix the little things that arise in all construction, thus saving them time and money.

Customers saw issues get solved right away, instead of waiting for the tradesman to arrive a few days later.

I replaced my old job with another person doing the same thing going from house to house making sure the quality was up to management’s expectations.

After one year I was recruited to another builder. This builder was a small builder. Once again I improved time and quality on the specific construction site. I was there for 8 months then I was recruited by the builder to come into the office to help guide there current systems. Since the builder was small, I played many roles. I did everything from helping with marketing strategies to shopping for quality vendors.

Throughout all of these positions I felt the entire industry was doing things wrong and the top level managers had been in the industry 30+ years. They were used to doing things a certain way, it was not an organizational problem it was an industry problem.

Industry Problems :

*The lack of motivating others, so the best and the worst would get paid relatively the same.

*The lack of over site, the industry would not even have a simple checklist for someone outside the organization to check quality; they left quality to government inspectors and homeowner complaints.

*The lack of innovation; the same home style in the early 80’s were being built in the late 90’s no creativity.

*The lack of systems; every construction site was left to the local superintendents to come up with there own ideas.


Learning Experiences :

One day one of my previous clients asked me to finish a basement and his friend also asked me to finish a basement for him. Yet another client had an old home they wanted to remodel as well.

After working in the office I had access to all the pricing information and I quickly found out that I could make more money in three projects then I could make in three years working for someone else.

I maxed out credit cards, borrowed money from family and I started my own business finishing basements and remodeling.

It was a complete disaster. Finishing basements and remodeling was completely different from building homes, every basement had different problems.

*When finishing basements, basements were all different sizes. When building the home, the home was relatively the same with minor changes.

*If I had a plumbing issue when building a home it was simple we used the same pipes, the same fixtures, and the same installer who had the same parts. I would go from home to home remodeling and every time I ripped out the drywall I encountered a new problem I had never seen before. Some of these problems were because the homes were built in the 1980’s and some in the 1880’s.

*I became an expert on how to attach a newly engineered wood framing system to a concrete foundation during new construction. But it seemed impossible to fix a home that had a frame slip, off an 80 year old foundation due to environmental settlement in a historical park.

*New home construction was easy to me because I built it from the ground up I knew every tradesman on that house and could call on there advice if something went wrong. I couldn’t do that with remodeling, remodeling was not meant for me. It is a mom and pop style business and I understood the workings of two multi-billion dollar companies and one multi-million dollar company.

I spent two years trying to make it work, debt started to pile up. I worked night and day under massive stress and had many sleepless nights. I had a failed personal relationship, because we lived at home, we were broke, and I was ugly because my mom had to cut my hair.

I tried to buy a lot and build my own home to sell but no one would give me a huge loan on an investment and not a traditional mortgage, especially since I had racked up loans taking out one to pay the other.

Chuckie Cheese :

One day I was at Chuckie Cheese with my cousin’s daughter and I ran into a homeowner I had built a home for in the past. As one my first clients he loved the home. I had told him that I had my own construction company but not telling him what I do or the fact that I was in trouble.

We talked for hours as the kids played. He had just bought a lot and asked me to build a home for him on that lot. It was almost identical to the home I had built for him previously.


A Prayer Answered :


He had to move from Fairfax to Prince William County and gave me a $40,000 advance, but he had problems with his septic so it took a few months to begin. The great thing was the fact it was his loan, his money, and his inventory I needed nothing upfront.

I paid off every debt I had. I finished all the projects I had and was waiting. When I started it seemed easy compared to remodeling. I would pour the foundations go to the bank and get money to pay off the tradesmen and keep the rest. I would build the frame then do the same.

I cruised through my first project. The entire subdivision was filled with equestrian lots. I put a sign up in front of the lot and all I would offer is the same exact home with a different front and different colors. I didn’t even offer different material. The home had to be brick front, with siding and hardwood throughout the first floor, carpet on the second, no finished basements, one and only one fireplace.

It was the only way to get to my philosophy; the best home for the best price.. period.


Nine Years Later :


The first year I had two sales, the next I had 7, the third I started recruiting the best and giving them a piece of the financial pie and sold 20. Now, years later from my first remodel job we are selling at a very steady pace, in the mist of the financial and housing crisis, by attempting to meet the desires of anyone interested in luxury homes. With an efficiency level that is unsurpassed in the industry.

I know my costs of a home within less then 1% so we add the overhead costs and we add the most competitive profit margin possible. We do a phase of construction first and then get paid.

ANV has just purchased three model home sites valued at over 1.2 million, we paid in cash, we have contractual revenues this year of over 12.5 million and we expect to have another six to 12 million by Sept of 2009. We are expanding into new areas, new home designs, new systems and new business processes.

Now, ANV has 14 full time employees all receive profit sharing and all get performance bonuses that can triple or quadruple what the industry values there trade.
ANV engages 297 vendors on a monthly, weekly, or daily bias and about 30 vendors work exclusively with ANV.
I can not believe I am living the American dream by building it for friends like you.

-Neil Puri