How Many Projects Is Your Project Manager Running?

Most homeowners interview a builder about price, schedule and past work. Very few ask the question that decides how the months of construction will actually feel: how many other jobs is the person running mine also running right now?

It is a fair question to ask any builder, including us. Here is why it matters, how our team is set up around it, and what to ask before you sign with anyone.

Why the number matters more than the résumé

A large renovation is thousands of small decisions made in the right order. The framing has to be checked before the electrician arrives. The tile has to be on site before the tile setter is. A question from the homeowner about an outlet location has to be answered before the drywall goes up, not after.

A project manager running five or six jobs can be very good at the work and still spend the whole week reacting: driving between houses, returning calls late, finding out about a problem after it has already cost a day. Stretched that thin, nobody has time to look ahead. The schedule slips a day here and two days there, and the homeowner is the last to know.

A project manager working below capacity has room to do the part that prevents problems: walking the house before each trade arrives, checking materials against the plans, and answering your questions while there is still time to act on them.

There is no industry standard for this number, which is exactly why it is worth asking. A Remodelers Advantage consultant who works with remodeling companies across the country has heard of project managers with five or six jobs going at once, while others say two or three is all they can handle well.

The number is only half of it. Where the jobs are matters just as much. A project manager whose houses are spread across the region spends the day in the truck. One whose jobs sit close together can be at each of them in the same morning, and back that afternoon if something comes up.

Homeowners feel the difference. In a 2024 Houzz survey of nearly 2,900 homeowners, more than half ran into a challenge once work began, and schedule changes and communication topped the list. The Charlotte chapter of the National Association of the Remodeling Industry puts it more bluntly, calling a lack of supervision the number one reason projects go off the rails.

Who runs your project on our team

Every project we build has the same structure: a whole team assembled around it, with an owner at each end and dedicated leadership with you from start to finish.

1. 01

   Pre-construction

   Rob Sutton, our pre-construction manager, and Max Messenger, one of the owners, run the discovery call, the room-by-room deep dive, the Red Light Review and the detailed pricing that becomes your fixed price.

   What it means for youThe people pricing your project are the people who learned it room by room.

2. 02

   Head of construction

   Esiquio Uribe Cortes, our other owner, leads construction. Every project manager and every job in the field runs through him.

   What it means for youAn owner is over the building of your house.

3. 03

   Project manager

   Reese Landenberger, Tim Callahan and Gabe Williams never run more than three projects at once, and only when those are smaller jobs close together. Each came up through custom construction, not just tract homes, and wore the tool belt before earning the job. Your project manager owns the schedule, the trades, the materials and your questions.

   What it means for youSomeone who has built what they manage, with the time to manage it.

4. 04

   Site supervisor

   Spencer Hage is on our job sites daily, backing up the project managers: deliveries and material runs, keeping each site safe and clean, and hands-on carpentry and punch work.

   What it means for youThe small things get done without waiting on a trade.

5. 05

   Accounts

   Ruby Tharin, our accounts manager, keeps every draw and invoice clean and easy to follow.

   What it means for youNo surprises when the bills come.

What it looks like from the homeowner's side

The difference shows up in the small, daily things, and our clients describe it better than we can. One family who added onto their 1953 home in Lansdowne wrote about their project manager:

“Reese, our PM, was onsite everyday ensuring that progress was moving forward as scheduled, and the trades had everything they needed to execute their work.”

Hannah H. · Google review

Another family, whose whole home we remodeled, put it this way:

“Everything gets logged in and there are pictures of the work that was done on that day attached, Tim … also sends a daily email with everything that was done …”

Yanim H. · Google review

Neither of those is realistic for a project manager juggling five or six houses across town. Both are normal when the load is kept below what he could carry and his jobs are close together.

Questions to ask any builder before you sign

Whoever you hire, these are the questions that tell you how your project will actually be run. Most of them are on the National Association of the Remodeling Industry's own contractor checklist, and a good builder will be glad you asked.

• How many jobs is my project manager running?Ask for the number, not “a few.” Ask how many will be running during your construction months.
• Who is on site every day?A name, and how often that person is actually at your house.
• How will I hear about progress?Daily logs, photos, a live schedule, or a call when someone remembers.
• Who do I call with a question?And how quickly should you expect an answer.
• Will the person who priced it stay involved?The handoff from sales to construction is where details get lost.
• Can I talk to a recent client?Ask them how often they saw their project manager.

Why we built the company this way

We keep our project managers below what they could carry: three projects at most, close together, fewer when a job is large. That means we take on fewer projects than we could, and it is a deliberate choice, because it protects the quality of the work, the time they spend on each site, and your experience as a client. We build large renovations and additions for homeowners only, and we do not start a project until the scope is buttoned up and a slot is reserved in our construction schedule. That lets us keep our people focused, move as fast as the work allows, and give every client the same attention the first one got.

It also connects to how we price. A fixed price only holds when the people building the project are close enough to it to keep it on track. You can read more about that in fixed price versus cost-plus, and about each step of the work on our process page.

Questions we hear about who runs the job

If you are planning a large renovation or an addition, the discovery call below is ten to fifteen minutes with our pre-construction team, and it is the first step toward knowing what your project will take.