Oregon Home | 53 “Ziebart explained their process, services and fees. How they approached renovation made sense to us,” says Peggy. “Our project manager [Eric Zappe] was exceptionally good at his job. He was a key person in having our renovation turn out as well as it did.” Matt Ziebart grew up in the construction industry and followed in the footsteps of his grandfather and father as a carpenter and general contractor. “Any lifelong professional remodeler can get the beautiful end result the clients want — the real challenge is delivering an amazing process and price,” he says. Prior to launching this company, Ziebart worked in the luxury designbuild industry, which has the results and process everyone wants, just not the price. “I knew how to deliver the process and the results. I set out to discover how to do it all at the mid-price point.” He realized that homeowners had to choose between either “overspending” with luxury firms for a low-risk process, guaranteed fixed prices and a professional design team or roll the dice with “free-estimate contractors,” of which there are thousands in Oregon, providing variable and vague estimates. “That’s where the light bulb went off and I said, ‘Well, I know how to do the luxury design-build company model and have all the contacts. So why don’t we just pull our profit margins down and give the clients what they want.’ That became my obsession — to create the perfect client remodeling experience at a mid-priced point.” Ziebart Construction launched in 2018 and, within just a few years, was the largest full-service kitchen and bath remodeling company in Portland, Ziebart says. The company’s fully transparent pricing, awardwinning design team and team of exceptional subcontractors has led to many happy customers, and Ziebart finds himself getting rave reviews and continuous business with little marketing effort. “We created an entire new segment in the industry — giving homeowners what they want at the price they want,” Ziebart says. “My wife and I were excited after the first year when we realized that the idea worked — homeowners loved the mid-priced luxury model. It took some time to figure out how to make a profit, however, with the key being to do a high volume of work.” Every client gets a three-person team: an initial sales design consultant, a designer and finally a project manager — with responsibilities for different phases as a project progresses. The first consultation in the home determines scope and price range. A week later, homeowners have
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