The First Home & The First Million-Dollar Deal

Host Adrian Kizy sits down with Randy Najjar, founder of Sapphire Luxury Homes, to go back to the very beginning — the first house he ever built, the losses that nearly broke him, and the negotiation that landed his first million-dollar deal.

Randy walks through how a neighbor's offer to partner 50/50 turned into his first project under the Sapphire name — a 3,300 sq. ft. home in Rochester Hills that took over a year to build. He talks candidly about convincing a client to trust an unproven builder, what it actually felt like in the room (no imposter syndrome, just confidence he didn't fully know was earned yet), and how quickly that confidence turned into overreach: nine projects signed in twelve months, three losses in a row, and a partner who had his back when it mattered most.

The conversation also covers the moment Sapphire's luxury identity started taking shape — a Parade of Homes event that planted the seed — and the story behind his first million-dollar contract, including a client's obsession with numerology that led to one of the more memorable price negotiations of Randy's career.

0:00 Welcome back, Randy
0:15 Going back to the early years
2:58 Randy's first home: Rochester Hills, 2013
4:30 Earning a client's trust with no track record
6:40 Imposter syndrome — or the lack of it
8:05 Falling in love with the business, then signing nine projects
9:43 Overextended: three losses in a row
12:22 From Sapphire Building to Sapphire Luxury Homes
13:05 The Parade of Homes that shaped his vision
16:10 The first million-dollar deal — and the "1122" negotiation
20:03 Lessons that still stick today

Connect with Sapphire Luxury Homes: 

www.sapphireluxuryhomes.com 

www.instagram.com/sapphireluxuryhomes

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

All right, guys, welcome back to another episode of the Dream Builders Podcast. Randy, it's good to have you back.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

It's great to be here.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

So I want to kind of go back to the early years. Um like your first home. How did that opportunity come about? How did you sign your first home?

SPEAKER_00 0:24

So we may have touched on it uh in an earlier conversation. Um, one of my neighbors at the condo I used to live in um had seen that I was building houses or representing other builders to help them build houses. Yeah, um, we we got to talking. He he had built a handful of homes. We would build like one at a time and kind of move in and then build another one, sell it, kind of do that. So um when I was thinking about getting off on my own and starting my own company, you know, I knew a lot of the back end stuff, like sales, obviously, marketing, selections, designs, permitting, all those things. I knew construction, but I didn't know it super well. Um like sequencing, scheduling, what goes when, and sure, um, didn't have all the trade resources. I had a handful, but not everybody. So I approached uh my neighbor and I was like, listen, if I get a job under my Sapphire brand, would you want to work it with me and and uh want to learn from you the process and the procedure and and we'll split the profit 50-50. And he was like, Yeah, that sounds pretty good to me. Um, and then he came to me one day, he's like, Listen, I'm I'm building my own home and my brother owns a lot right next door. Um, why don't we market that? If you if you find a buyer for it, we'll do it there. I was like, okay, I was like, great. Um, so we did. Uh, marketed it, and that was really what I was good at doing, right? Um finding people that want to build homes and and getting them to sell uh or selling them on wanting to build a home uh with the builders we're working for. So this was my opportunity to do it for myself, and I did. Um luckily for me, it was a a client that uh was all cash, they didn't need a mortgage. The reason I bring that up is because you can't necessarily be approved as a builder with banks if you don't have a resume or a track record, right? Um, so this was kind of perfect happenstance. Um, the client knew I had worked with other builders in the past, and you know, this was my first home under Sapphire, the brand. Um, they knew uh my neighbor was also working with me as well, and we were partnering up on the deal. So they they bought into it. Uh they gave me the opportunity, gave them a pretty good deal. Obviously, it was my first one, and and that home was in Rochester Hills. Um 30 it was started out 3,100 square feet, ended up like 3,300 square feet. Uh and I think we sold it for like $350,000. Not gonna the land, it's the build, the build contract. Um, keep in mind this is 2013, so 13 years ago. Um and we broke, we we signed that up in July of 2013, broke ground in November, October, I want to say October of 2013, and then we finished it the following October, November of 2014. Sweet. Um, so it took me just over a year to build that house. Um, and actually, it's funny enough, I just drove by it last week. Uh, I was in the area and um I was with my wife and kids, and I was like, You guys want to see dad's first house that we built? Nice. My son was like, No, I want to go home. I was like, Well, too bad, I'm gonna show you anyway. Uh so we drove by, and actually, it's kind of hard to see now. There's like a forest in front of it. It was kind of built behind some wetlands. Um, learned a ton building that house and driving by. It's cool to see that was my first project. Doesn't look like the homes that I build nowadays. Sure. Um, it was you know version 1.0, if you will. Uh, but it's still something I'm I'm definitely still proud of.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Good. Now you brought up the year, which I'm glad I was gonna ask you, you know, set a time for how long ago this was. So this is about 13 years ago. So you're young. Back then you were younger, yeah, and you didn't necessarily have an established track record. Um how do you convince a client to trust you? Did you need to convince this client to trust you?

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Absolutely. I mean, trust, especially in building a home, there's tons of horror stories out there about how it always goes wrong and you know takes twice as long and caught ends up costing twice as much. And then there's the builders go MIA or bankrupt or whatever. So there was definitely convincing required. Um, one of the good things was that the lot that we had was desirable, so the client wanted to be in that okay location. And if they did, then they didn't have a choice, they had to build with us. Right. Um, but I had told them, you know, I've been doing this uh at the time, it was probably like four or five years of me working with other builders, and um my partner on that project had built a handful of homes. Um, he was able to go walk through one of his homes and walk through one of the homes I was representing for the other builders, and that kind of built some trust. Um obviously I knew what I was talking about. It's not like it was my first experience, period, in the in the um home building world. Um, and and again, we gave him a good deal. Yeah, we didn't make a ton of money on that house, but it was a great portfolio piece for me. It was a great, you know, um, I can actually do it in a proof of concept. Yeah. And um, you know, going back to my age, so I started Sapphire, I got my builder's license, uh, April of 2012, established Sapphire in November of 2012, and signed this deal up in in July of 2013. So it was it was a pretty short period of time overall. And I was, I want to say, let me do the math here, uh 23 when I started Sapphire, and 24 when I first assigned that first deal. So I was a young guy and I and I looked pretty young. Yeah. Um, the couple I was building for were relatively young too, but you know, they they felt comfortable and confident, and I think that's a big part of it. Sure. And I and I did have an established reputation in the community already from the real estate side of things.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

So now it's one thing to convince a client, right? But imposter syndrome is a real thing. Did you have to convince yourself? Did you feel confident? Were you anxious? What was going on in your head on the like yeah, let the we signed it. Let's go.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

For that first house, I was actually pretty confident. Um, you know, sometimes when you don't know what you don't know, you you you feel confident. Um, plus I had my the the partner on that home that I was relying on as well, and sure, he was supporting me throughout that process. Um and so that that you know made me feel comfortable and confident. So, you know, there was definitely some learning experiences and ups and downs, but overall I thought it was actually a pretty smooth project. And okay, the client we're we're still um, we just had a ribbon cutting for the pinnacle neighborhood last year. I invited all my past clients. He came. Oh, that's awesome. Uh him and his wife, and uh we got chatting a little bit, and you know, they still live in that home, so it's pretty cool. Um, I will say that at that first home, no, I did not have imposter syndrome. Fast forward like a year and a half after that. So halfway through building that home, I was like, this is it, this is what I want to do. I I love everything about this. I love the design and the sale and the build, the construction, and it feels good to create something out of nothing. And for sure, you know, this it felt like this was a right. Um again, background in sales, I kind of went pedal to the metal after that. And the next 12 months, I signed nine projects under the Sapphire brand. And uh that's when kind of things got a little bit shaky. She was uh at the time a one-man band. Um, the partner on that first home was only a partner on that first home. After that, I was kind of on my own. Yeah. I remember hiring my first project manager and then hired uh uh a helper and then an administrative, but still we were a very small team, and I had homes from Troy and Rochester to West Bloomfield and Bloomfield and everything in between. So there's a lot of geographical distance to to cover, and that's when I was like, uh oh, maybe maybe I bit off a little more than I can chew here. Sure. Uh I did bite more than I could chew. It was a challenging point in time. Um, this is like 2014, 2015, and it felt like you know, you're always underwater trying to just pop your head up a little bit to catch your breath, but it was it was challenging. You know, sails are a good thing. Uh and I was very aggressive and I was very excited. And looking back, would I do it all again? I mean, I came out stronger on the other side. Sure. I probably would have done it a little bit differently, maybe five homes instead of nine homes, and yeah, you know, kind of learned a little bit more um before I jump too deep into the water, but all is well that ends well, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:42

Yeah. Now I'm gonna ask you a question, kind of like a raw question about that. So you bid off more than you can chew. Did you suffer? Did the clients see that, or was it did you take the blunt of it? What did the quality/slash clients suffer? Like what were the implications of that?

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Um, I don't believe my clients suffered. You know, we're with every home project, there you know, there's a little bit of an emotional roller coaster for the client. Of course. I don't think it was anything out of the ordinary. We I was waking up early and going to sleep late, you know, burning it at both ends, if you will. Um, my project manager Todd at the time, I mean, he really he put sapphire on his back. And yeah, I remember we muscled our way through that situation. Um I I vividly remembering going to the office on a Sunday one day, and I'm looking at my desk, and there's just like stacks of things that I need to do. And I was like, all right, I just I just got to power through this. So organized it, put them in piles, prioritize it, and I'm just powering through, looking at, you know, I'm doing everything, invoices and sending things out for bid, reviewing bids, reviewing plans, going through permitting applications, going through the selections with the clients and making sure we're dotting our I's and crossing our T's. Ultimately, I didn't even have enough um trade contractors to do the amount of work that we needed. So I'm trying to find new guys, you know, making calls. You know, do you have anybody for this? And yeah, you know, finding random guys uh I'd pull over on a job site because I see a homeowner construction all the time. That was standard practice for me. See who's on site, yeah, get some cards, get them to bid some jobs. Did I really know if they were um capable? Only from what I was able to see, and I would try to vet them a little bit more. Um, and a lot of times I'm just throwing money at these things to try to make sure that the projects progress. Got it. And I lost, I lost that first job that I did. We made a little bit of money. I was I was over the moon. The next three jobs in a row was a loss, loss, loss. Yeah. What it cost me to build was more than what I sold it for. And I think a product of that was just inefficiency, sure. You know, not doing things properly and just trying to muscle your way through. And yeah, it was a it was an expensive learning lesson. I chalked it up to education, educational expense. Um it's a good way to look at it. Yeah, I mean, what's the alternative, right? Right.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

Um, you know, you pay to go to school to learn, and I I learned from the school hard knocks on now back then, and you mentioned this in a past episode, but we were sapphire building, yeah, not sapphire luxury homes yet. So did you have kind of the inklings of what sapphire would become today? Like were you that forward-thinking, or had that not developed yet that early on in the career?

SPEAKER_00 12:40

No, I always knew I wanted to do luxury homes and higher end homes. Like the first home I built, you know, was that 3,300 square foot home, which for a first home I would say that's relatively large. Yeah. And most people are building 2,000 square foot homes or 2,500 or whatever. Um, I I vividly remember fall of 2014. I believe it was 2014. There was a home a rama in Oakland Township in the Pinnacle neighborhood uh with Mo Sherry and a few other builders. And I bought tickets to the Black Tie charity event, and then I went probably like three or four more times, and I was just in awe of these homes. At the time, these were you know two to three million dollar homes, which were in today's world, you know, five to six million dollars. And they were very, very well done from uh architectural design, interior design, landscaping, the whole nine yards. And I remember walking through, and one of my buddies was there, and I was like, one day I want to build homes like these. That that was my dream. Um, now we're actually in that same pinnacle neighborhood in that in the newest uh uh phase in the back. But yeah, I I I always had the vision that that's what I wanted to do. Not like ultra, ultra crazy 20, 30 million dollar homes necessarily, but I want it to be luxury.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Yeah, but what about like because now you're more you're not just a luxury builder, right? Like you brought in the landscape and the design and the like did you always know that you wanted something that resembled the team you have today, or did that just kind of develop as well?

SPEAKER_00 14:10

No, I I knew I wanted that vertical. I'm you know, back, I don't know if you remember my my office in Troy. Yeah, on Big Beaver, uh back at the Keller Williams office, I had a 10 by 10 office with a cubicle outside for my admin. And um, we're door hangers to you. Yeah, yeah. That's right. Meet clients in the conference room there, and I had a whiteboard. Um, and I remember you know drawing it out, you know, painting the picture of like, what are the facets of this business that I could get into? What do I want to get into? Because there's like remodeling, um, you know, doing finished basements, doing additions. Do you want to get into commercial? Do you want to do uh multifamily? And you know, I've never had a desire to do commercial or remodeling. Um, I flipped a couple homes back in my day, but that that wasn't a passion. Yeah. Um, but what are the parts that I did like? Anything they had to do with with the design and build of a new home. So I love design, like that's my background architecture. I always liked interior design as well. Yeah. Um, building the home, finishing the basement while I'm building the home obviously is a is a value add um to the bottom line and to the client. Sure. And you know, landscaping, if you build a house, you have to have landscaping. It's yeah, it's not an option, right? So we don't do a lot of really any maintenance of landscaping or uh remodeling of landscaping, it's it's mostly for the homes that we build or of similar caliber projects where we're just installing new yeah, like design and install.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Design and build, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

So yeah, I from an early stage in my business, back when it was still sapphire building, I knew that I wanted to kind of be holistic around that approach. Sweet.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

Now, granted, in today's market, the number means something different, but you know, when you think luxury, right? A million, a million. That's number everybody's head. So why don't you tell me about the first time you got that million-dollar contract? What did that look like?

SPEAKER_00 16:09

Yeah. Um I had a a realtor that had approached me and said, I have a client that wants to build in Troy. Um he wants to be on an acre, he wants to be able to build a large home. He's he's uh he's a foreign, he's a foreign person here on a visa, on a work visa. Okay, well to do, and wants to build a home. He he wants to eventually get his citizenship here and raise his kids and family here. Yeah. Um, so I think I know the house. Yeah, so I remember the house. I um knew of a piece of property in the Charnwood neighborhood um that a client was talking to me about building for them. And they had just bought the lot and they weren't wanting to build, but he was kind of like, I don't know if I'm ready. He was wishy-washy. So I showed it to this new other client and I said, you know, if I can get the guy to sell, is this a good lot for you? And he said, Yes. So I went back to the to the client that originally owned the lot and um he had bought it for 200 grand. And I was like, I got somebody that's interested in in buying this lot. If you're in if you don't want to, if you don't want to build right now, he's like, Well, I don't know if I want to build, I don't know if I want to sell it. I was like, what if I can get you 300 for the lot? He was like, make a 50% return in months of time. He was like, Yeah, I'd sell it for $300. I'll go find another lot. So that's how I made that deal happen. And the client sitting across the table, he was a little bit concerned. Like, he saw some of the homes I was building, but they weren't million-dollar homes. They were sure half million dollar homes, four or five hundred, maybe six hundred thousand dollar homes. I think I had one at like seven hundred. Yeah. Um, but I wanted to convince him that you know I could do it. And it was a larger home than what I was previously building, it was six thousand square feet. Yeah, most of the homes I was building were in the four to five thousand square feet range. Um so I I helped him get the property, which built trust right there. Like, okay, you know, he knows something, right? Sure. Um, and we were sitting in that Troy office on Big Beaver. He was sitting in my office with his realtor across from me, and I gave him a proposal. And I remember I was nervous because uh started with a one, you know, yeah, one million one hundred, one million two hundred grand, something like that. Yeah, and it was for this home with these features and and these details. And um the address of that home was a cool address, it was um 2211, 2211. Yeah. And the client sitting across from me, he was big into numerology. Sure. So we're negotiating, he's negotiating me hard. Like he wants me to knock off two, three hundred thousand dollars off this off this price. I'm like, I can't knock off two. There's not even two hundred uh in profit to knock off. So I was like to him, I got something for you. I was like, the address is two two one one. What if I charge you one one two? I don't know why that came to my mind. He was talking about how numbers were important to him, and he just looked at me and he's like, I like that. And that was my first million dollar deal, yeah. Um 1.122. That was my first million dollar deal, and it was a really cool project for me. It was a wide home, uh, a very nice architectural style.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

And yeah, if I remember, was it like a double lot? Is this the same house I'm thinking?

SPEAKER_00 19:34

No, it wasn't a double lot, but it was a large lot. It was a I mean it was an acre property.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Yeah, yeah. The house had a really wide face. It was very wide, yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. Um, and you know, continue and you build and you build. I want to go back to that that first home. Are there I know you said there wasn't anything crazy, but are there any lessons that like you took away from that home that like are still with you today?

SPEAKER_00 20:02

You know, I was heavily involved in that home, like on a day-to-day basis. I was on on the site every day. Um, you know, I remember being in the basement hole putting in the back bracing before you know backfill, and it was you know October, November. It was muddy, it was nasty out. Um we're cold, and we're doing this after hours. It's nighttime. We got like lights shining in there. And um, one of the lessons that I learned, or one of the, I wouldn't say even a lesson, one thing that stuck out to me is like construction of a home has numerous different people involved. There's hundreds of people that work on these homes day in and day out. Uh, we manage them, we don't necessarily self-perform, we're not you know putting hammers to nails. Sure. But but not to take for granted what people are doing to to help create these homes. This isn't done by Sapphire alone or by Randy alone. It's it's it's a it's a large group of people, hundreds of people coming together to create, to design, and build these homes. And um, you know, they they're working hard. They really are. And I I was down in that hole doing something, and I was thinking to myself, like, I don't like this part uh of the build. You know, that's not my favorite part. I'll do what I have to do, but uh ultimately I'd love to hire the right people and get them to do the right things for me. And I would say that was that was one of the things that really stuck out to me. It's like people people bust ass to put food on the table for their families and and we help to make that happen and and not to take that for granted.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

For sure. And I it you I wasn't even thinking of this, but you kind of brought it up. But you know, to do something like what you want to do, and in business in general, everyone's like delegate, delegate, delegate. You can't be the one doing the work. But in the beginning, when you are, I think that's super important, right? Because now you know what goes into it, you know what these people are doing, you know what to look for, so you can provide these opportunities for the right people, right? So it's like important to kind of get down and dirty in the beginning so that you're not just throwing money at a problem and hoping that it that you know what I mean? Because a lot of people just approach that, right? Throw more money at it. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

I mean, a lot of people look at it now and say, you know, it's a pretty picture. Um, but I would say anybody getting into business, any kind of business, construction or not, if if you're gonna own your own business, I think it's important to know all the facets of that business, all the different pieces and parts, divisions and departments. Um, you know, I I listened to Elon's biography um a year ago, and and like the amount of time he spent on the auto on the line, like overnight on the floor, like spending time and learning the pieces and parts on his Teslas or on his SpaceX rocket ships. That was inspiring. This guy was already a multimillionaire at the time, and he was still wanting to know every single piece and how he could make it better and efficiencies. And I think for me, I've done every single aspect of from from you know pulling permits to hiring contractors, sending things out for a bid, designing, uh, you know, being out there with the trades, project managing, laboring, you know, brooming uh and sweeping and shoveling snow off the prop projects and properties and things of the sort. I remember uh the second home I ever built, um, I rented a um machine from I think it was Chet's rental or whatever, and I was trying to install my own silt fence and it was uh like a ride behind trencher, and um I didn't have somebody to do that job, and the city was requiring this. So I was like, okay, I'll figure it out. I went and bought the silt fence material and I'm out, I'm out there. This machine is is handling me. I was not handling the machine, and I'm over there trying to go. It was a big lie. It's like 300 by 200 by 300 by 200. I'm there all day. It's August, it's hot, I'm sweating trying to do this thing, and it's like not going super well. I know, like, yeah, this is this is not my favorite part of the job. So sure again, do did I do have I done every piece of like plumbing and electrical? No, not necessarily, but I was involved and I and I learned a lot about all the different parts of uh the whole that come together.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

Yeah, sort of you you they're the building blocks of you know what you were able to achieve today. So I look forward to seeing. I know there's this big plans, and you know, there's a new model home coming. So I look really forward to see where Sapphire goes from here.