Alumni Spotlight: Kirk Welsh

 

By Serena Maria Daniels

 

When Detroit architect and developer Kirk Welsh talks about his company HouseWarming, he doesn’t just describe flooring installations or construction timelines — he talks about integrity, relationships, and the lessons learned from fostering a trusted network, one duplex at a time. A 2020 graduate of Building Community Value’s Better Buildings, Better Blocks program, Welsh embodies what BCV was created to do: empower Detroiters with the tools to transform their neighborhoods from within.

 

Before launching HouseWarming, Welsh spent three years in Puerto Rico before returning to Michigan in 2019 to embark on his career as a licensed architect. For him, architecture was always about more than blueprints and design — it was a way to build generational wealth and opportunity. “I’ve always wanted to use architecture as a means to get into bigger development deals,” he says. “The goal is to build a vertically integrated real estate sort of empire.”

 

When Welsh learned about BCV’s mission to train Detroit residents in small-scale real estate development, he saw it as the missing link between his education and his entrepreneurial vision. “I heard about the great things [BCV was] doing in the community — helping unseasoned real estate developers in education and how you take us through this entire course to be able to understand how to put together a development deal [on a] small scale, and eventually graduate into bigger deals,” says Welsh.

 

Welsh joined BCV’s 2020 cohort, shortly before the pandemic, joining the class already the owner of a duplex in Detroit’s Bagley neighborhood. Six years later, the relationships he formed in that class remain some of the most valuable assets in his professional life, with the program’s facilitators usually just a phone call or text message away. “I think the really important piece was the relationship building and the networking piece, because you know you learn what you learn in those few weeks of the program, but there's things that you need to know and you need to learn outside of that,” Welsh says.

 

That network proved critical when Welsh began working on his Bagley duplex project. Financing was the biggest hurdle. Despite his background in architecture, steady income, and strong credit, banks were unwilling to take a chance on a first-time developer. “Even though I had the educational background… and being in architecture, and I actually had the duplex, I still didn't get lending in order to help me to bridge the gap between the financing piece of getting it done,” Welsh recalls.

 

BCV was there for Welsh at a crucial moment. He had earned first place in his cohort’s pitch competition and received a small grant, which he used to install new windows in his property. It was a modest but crucial step. “That [funding] went a long way,” he said. “The new windows in the house helped me to move a tenant into one of the units, which helped me to generate income, to be able to put into more parts of the actual renovation,” says Welsh. With perseverance and creativity, Welsh completed renovations of that first property, and later acquired a second property a few blocks away. He sold both in 2024 — proceeds that would help him launch HouseWarming.

 

Even with that momentum, challenges persisted. “When I first started this journey, quality contractors was something that everybody always talked about,” says Welsh. “ It really came into practice when I actually had to experience it for myself.”

 

He experienced missed deadlines, inconsistent communication, and even a flooring contractor who disappeared after taking a deposit. Rather than giving up, Welsh turned the experience into opportunity. “I wanted to take a piece of the contracting business and bring professionalism that I learned in the architecture industry, just being polished and having integrity and communicating, and bring that into the contracting world,” he said. That was the start of HouseWarming.

 

Originally, HouseWarming offered a range of services — cleaning, painting, flooring, property clear-outs — designed to help real estate agents prepare homes for the market. But after a few months, Welsh realized he was running six different businesses at once. After about four months of this, he had to ask himself which service was the company actually excelling in. “I said, which services could we be the best at, that we are running efficiently that produce the greatest margins, and that we have the best relationship with suppliers with.”

 

The answer was flooring. He narrowed the company’s focus to carpet and vinyl plank flooring, allowing him to refine processes, build supplier relationships, and deliver consistent, quality results.

 

The pivot paid off. HouseWarming now works with property management firms, real estate investors, and general contractors across Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties. The company has also expanded into commercial work — a milestone Welsh credits to focusing on excellence over expansion. “We're focusing on this one service, I [can] actually perfect the process, the craft, the pricing and everything else,” says Welsh. “Once we got the flooring down pack, we'll get into maybe roofing, or we'll get into dry walling or things like that,” he says, adding that one day, he hopes to become a vertically integrated real estate powerhouse for the metro Detroit area.

 

Though growth is part of his plan, Welsh is intentional about staying grounded. “I wanted to make sure we kept a really personal feel,” he said.

 

Asked what advice he’d give to others considering the BCV program, Welsh doesn’t hesitate. “Relationships are super important,” he said. “You never just want to think transactionally about things. I never like to approach circumstances and just think about, what can this person do for me?

“Everybody knows, everybody in this industry, especially with us being a smaller city,” he adds.

​

For Welsh, success isn’t measured by the number of projects completed or contracts won, but by the community that’s grown alongside him. To maintain that sense of community, Welsh says: “You want to have integrity, have some principles that you stand by and that you live up to each day, because that's going to carry through every aspect of life.”