
Here’s the thing about residential construction projects: you have to keep (and maintain) close tabs on quality control throughout the building process.
If you miss construction defects early on, they snowball into more significant and expensive problems during the warranty period.
Why?
Because quality construction isn’t just about avoiding double payment and wasted time when you’re forced to bring trades professionals back. It’s about ensuring that these issues don’t affect your revenue and your customers' trust in your development brand.
This situation is incredibly common — and it’s also why the right systems and processes are critical to successfully building and selling a safe and profitable residential development project that actually closes on or close to your projected wrap-up date (without years of protracted service work).
In this residential construction project management guide, we’ll explore each phase of the construction process and look at how residential construction project managers can maintain quality control at every level, from lead to warranty.
Roles and responsibilities for residential construction projects
To get a full appreciation of all the moving pieces involved in successfully planning, developing, building, and completing a residential construction project, let’s start with the key roles and their scopes:
Project managers: PMs operating specifically in the construction niche oversee and manage a development project from start to finish. Their complex role means they’re responsible for ensuring that deliverables meet clients' specifications. They also assist with planning, scheduling, and budgeting, so you’ll often find them working cross-functionally and collaborating with financial teams, site supervisors, contractors, and more.
Site supervisors: A site supervisor oversees the day-to-day construction activities of a development project. These professionals also coordinate schedules and ensure workers, including on-site contractors, follow all safety protocols.
Contractors and subcontractors: These specialists work on and provide various trades in a residential development project. They could be specialists in a particular field, such as plumbing, welding, or electrical work.
Architects: Though their main remit is the design and drafting of a residential development release, architects must also have a deep understanding of how to prepare construction drawings, ensure compliance with building codes, design based on the land’s unique geographical features, and communicate with clients to translate a vision into units that meet a developers’ desired outcomes and build parameters.
Clients: The final piece of this puzzle is the Cilent, which is not necessarily a specific role as much as any individual owning certain priorities of a residential development. In the case of residential construction, the Client is the one who owns and steers project specifications and approves designs. They also review progress and “accept” the work as completed, releasing final payment to the contractor.
Now, if you think coordination and collaboration between these roles is the major challenge here, you’re not getting deep enough.
Rather, what complicates this picture is the data that shows a 21.4% industry-wide turnover rate. This, coupled with other realities like 61% of firms reporting project delays due to labor shortages and $31.3 billion in rework
Still, we’re not without good news: increasingly, real estate developers are turning to construction and development-focused tech adopted at scale and even faster, thanks to AI-driven efficiencies.
This is where the true opportunity to avoid expensive rework, miscommunication, skilled labor shortages, and poor data affecting construction project management appears.
Residential construction project phases
Residential construction projects typically follow a predictable set of general phases: pre-construction (or pre-build), construction, and post-construction, which involves closeout processes and warranty-related operations.

Here’s a breakdown of each stage of a residential construction project.
Pre-construction phase
The pre-construction phase is arguably the most important as it sets the foundation for success in new developments. It typically involves:
Project planning
Unknowns are unavoidable on projects of any scale, but laying the proper groundwork can mitigate risks and keep timelines on track.
Project planning involves clearly defining the project scope and construction requirements. You’ll also work with the project team to prepare comprehensive cost estimates for equipment, materials, and labor.
Another key aspect is developing a detailed project timeline that establishes milestones and completion dates. Using historical data from previously completed projects can help you come up with more accurate estimates.
Building permits and approvals
Consider building permits and approvals as the proverbial “green light” for your construction phase. With them, you can begin — without them, you’re waiting at a red light.
That means planning far enough ahead of your desired construction date to obtain various entitlements from local governments, which specify the land use, zoning, and regulations that developments must follow.
Lead times for approvals in major metropolitan areas, for example, are now measured in years rather than months. This reality could be reflected in the fact that, nationally, in Canada alone, housing starts were down 7% in urban centers with a population of 10,000+.
Procurement and contracting
As the name suggests, this involves procuring all the equipment and materials needed to complete a project. Builders will typically solicit bids and hire a general contractor who works with a team of subcontractors for more specialized tasks.
Risk assessment
Risk assessments are often conducted alongside other pre-construction activities. The goal is to identify potential risks that may affect timelines. For example, material shortages or permit processing issues can cause delays. By planning for these risks, you can develop a risk management plan and mitigate their impact.
Construction phase
Once you’ve finalized project plans, secured the necessary permits, and hired contractors, it’s time to “break ground.” This phase involves the following:
Site preparation
The project team prepares the site by conducting thorough assessments and establishing proper logistics for personnel and materials. This may also involve conducting environmental assessments to identify site challenges, such as soil or drainage issues, that could impact construction costs.
Construction scheduling
The construction project manager is responsible for keeping a project on schedule. They’ll create construction schedules and identify key milestones for each scope of work. They may use tools like Gantt charts to visualize timelines, map task dependencies, and coordinate their contractors’ schedules.
Quality control
Bringing trades back to address quality issues can affect profitability. An Autodesk study estimates that 5% of project costs are attributed to rework — correcting construction defects after work has been completed due to poor planning or lack of quality control.

The same study found that poor data and miscommunication caused 48% of rework. Performing regular inspections and using the right tools to organize communications can ensure construction quality control and avoid costly rework.
Safety compliance
Construction sites are dangerous places. The construction phase involves ensuring safe working conditions and complying with safety regulations.
This means:
Identifying potential hazards
Maintaining tools and equipment
Wearing the right protective gear
Adhering to on-site safety protocols
Conducting regular safety training
Client communication
Homebuyers want clear and transparent communication from builders. They don’t want to jump through hoops to get construction updates.
Here’s what one buyer says about the homebuilding process:

Builders should maintain open communication with buyers and provide regular updates throughout the building process.
Post-construction (closeout) phase
The post-construction or closeout phase is the last step after completing a project. It involves the following activities:
Inspections and punch lists
Once a project reaches substantial completion, contractors perform a final inspection and create punch lists with remaining items to add, modify, or remove. You’ll also need to work with regulatory authorities to inspect and verify that all structural, electrical, and plumbing systems meet safety standards.
The construction project manager then tours the project with the customer. If something isn’t “up to spec,” they’ll add additional items to the punch list.
Closeout documentation
Closeout documents provide detailed records of the construction process. They also help owners manage and maintain their new properties.
Some of the documents you’ll need to prepare and finalize include:
Inspection reports
As-built drawings
Operation and maintenance manuals
A Certificate of Occupancy (C of O)
Warranty documents
Warranty management
Warranties are important aspects of residential construction projects. They allow homeowners to file claims for certain building defects within a certain time period.
Once the project has been completed, you’ll hand over warranty documents to a buyer and explain what they cover. You’ll want to establish clear procedures and a centralized customer care and warranty tracking system to manage these requests, including the communications around their initiation and completion.
Client inspection and handover
Here, you’ll conduct a final walkthrough and confirm acceptance with the client. They’ll receive a Pre-Delivery Inspection (PDI), which provides records of the property’s condition before they move in.
This protects both the customer and the builder. You’ll then hand over the keys to the new owners and confirm completion of project deliverables.
Best practices for residential construction projects
Residential construction projects have many moving parts. Coordinating so many tasks and deadlines is bound to create challenges.
Follow these best practices to maintain quality control and deliver successful residential projects.
Streamline defect management with digital checklists
Defects can occur due to poor workmanship or improper installations. You must identify and address issues early — ideally while the construction team is still on-site to avoid more costly rework down the road.
Tools like RYZ can help you streamline inspections. Built natively on Salesforce, RYZ provides project managers full visibility of the inspection process and enables real-time tracking.
Here’s an example of a digital checklist for a new development:

With RYZ, you can track deficiencies, document the issue, assign the right trades, and instantly create work orders. You can also use the platform at the end of a PDI and have buyers sign off on this list to confirm acceptance. The document generated serves as a record of the property’s condition.
Implement a robust warranty management system
Warranties provide buyers with peace of mind by covering repair costs for certain home systems and appliances over a period of time. However, managing warranty claims can get chaotic fast without the right systems.
Project construction managers can use RYZ to:
Centralize warranty tracking and provide a “single source of truth” for all claims
Manage all homeowner questions and inquiries in one place
Create work orders and set up automated alerts
With an easy-to-use customer portal, you can ensure clear communication with your buyers and keep them informed throughout the warranty process.
Keep communications in one place
Ensuring continuous alignment throughout the building process is key to delivering successful outcomes.
RYZ centralizes communications between internal team members and customers so that they live in a single, easily accessible, and visible place, so teams don’t have to switch between different systems (or stitch several solutions together for a clunky, inefficient workflow).
This is important because effective communication leads to a 64% increase in productivity and a 51% increase in customer satisfaction.

By centralizing communications, you can keep your team on the same page and avoid the risk of important messages falling through the cracks.
Ensure quality control on your residential construction projects
Quality control must always take priority. Otherwise, you may end up with costly fixes and unhappy customers when you break the news that the project has to be delayed.
The good news? Regular inspections can help your team identify and address quality issues before they become costly remedial work. Of course, you’ll need the right tools to support your quality control processes.
RYZ offers a robust solution built on Salesforce. Whether you’re developing a single-family home, a multi-family unit, or a townhouse, RYZ allows you to streamline defect management, manage post-purchase warranty tracking, and centralize communications. This way, you can ensure quality control across development projects and keep your buyers happy.
Interested in learning more? Book a demo to see our Customer Care & Warranty Cloud Solution in action.
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