Demand for ready to move homes is pretty high right now and an Altona company has found a lot of success tapping into that market.

SK2 Building Solutions constructs homes for markets in Southeastern Saskatchewan, Manitoba and North Dakota, with the largest demand for their RTM product coming from south of the border.

The company's focus is primarily on building quality, high-end homes that are custom made for the buyer, according to co-owner Kevin Klaassen.

"Rather than building entry-level homes, we prefer to build the custom homes that take a little bit more time, a little bit more care, attention and love. I think that opened us up to new markets. The homes we're building are not small. We've got some that are 2,400 square feet that we just recently shipped out ... so there are clients looking for a higher-end build in an RTM format and we've been able to settle into that niche well."

Klaassen points out that most of their orders are coming from customers in North Dakota. In fact, that market makes up about 80 per cent of their overall business and the strength of the American dollar is definitely a factor in that equation.

"It definitely helps when you've got 20 to 35 per cent buying power just with the exchange. But, while the dollar is a factor, there's a huge lack of trades stateside as well, so we're going into that market and bringing work back home, helping the local tradespeople here by providing work and then bringing finished product back to the clients. It's really a win-win."

While the pandemic has put the breaks on the operations of many companies in Manitoba, some businesses have been able to carry on and thrive under the current conditions.

Klaassen admits COVID-19 has forced SK2 to make some adjustments in how they operate. For instance, while the Canada-U.S. border is wide open for trade and commerce it is still closed to travellers because of the virus threat. That prevents SK2 from meeting in person with their American clients. So, Klaassen says they were forced to come up with new ways of reaching their customers by doing virtual tours and a lot of FaceTime and other video work to stay connected.

"One of the first things we did when COVID hit was to double our marketing efforts. We thought people are going to be at home, they're not working and probably sitting on the couch with a phone or a laptop or an Ipad in front of them and so we tried really hard to put ourselves in front of them. We were able to reach a lot of new clients ... and aside from the challenge of not being able to get together with people in person, we're just flying here."

2019 was a record-breaking year for SK2 and Klaassen expects they'll top last year's performance by the end of December 2020 but he acknowledges much of that success is due to the local support they've received.

"We're fortunate that we can work with the local trade base here and keep so many guys busy and buy from the local lumberyard here in town. We're just having a great year and we've got really good support locally and we're really enjoying it."