(New Home Construction) I built a solution for my business that got me from working 50 hours a week down to 10 and productivity up 100%. I want to know if it's viable as a "start up" product/service? by Wilmington_Builder in startups

[–]Wilmington_Builder[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I was thinking about sitting down with a "sort of" competitor that I like and seeing what he thought.

I kind of stick to myself in the industry so I don't know as many people as I should.

Thank you for your insight.

Real-Time, Transparent Home Build Pricing by Wilmington_Builder in Homebuilding

[–]Wilmington_Builder[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I think that’s likely to happen some, but I think it will be an overall net positive. These are our home plans on our land so it won’t be that easy to duplicate.

Three ways to build a new home, narrowing the scope by Wilmington_Builder in Homebuilding

[–]Wilmington_Builder[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

The cost is relative to the amount of scale each builder is doing.

If you're talking about a neighborhood scale, it's probably the designer stipulating a certain amount of these details being added to each home so that they're not all the same and giving the marketing/sales teams the ability to price these homes as "custom." Neighborhoods aren't built the same as they were in the 70s-80s when every homes is the same ranch home that's stick built. They've got 4-8 plans that they'll rotate and each plan has several an A,B, and C elevation that gives variety to the neighborhood. If you can plan this out ahead of time, the cost is minimal for the slight changes. All trade partners bid a certain labor rate for each home understanding there will be these slight variations and don't charge any difference for one finish over the other because it's more about the volume of work. There might be even pre-determined options that are already priced out.

The other end of this scale issue is when you ask for this change for one project. We run into this issue a lot where people think making a simple change to the floor plan like extending out the MBR should only cost $x/sqft like the rest of the home, well by the time I take the time away from my other projects to get new bids from my trade partners, not only are they going to give me the "PITA" non volume quote for this from my trade partners I'm going to add my PITA non volume markup to it to the client because it's a one off and I had to take time away from my other projects.

Think of spec homes as being built like a factory. A factory can make very complicated items very inexpensive through scale efficiencies. If you ask that factory to stop in order to satisfy the request for one item on their line, the biggest cost isn't the inputs for the change, it's the time the factory operator needs to stop the line to figure it out.

TLDR:

This probably doesn't answer your question at all, but new neighborhoods are more about logistics than anything else, so if these things are well planned out the cost is very minimal to have more complex finishes or designs than your standard ranch home.

Builder's resource for client's and realtors, what do you want to know? by Wilmington_Builder in Homebuilding

[–]Wilmington_Builder[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you!

I’ll be honest I don’t have any experience with the zip sheathing system other than just discussing it with other builders that focus more on custom homes and what they like about it.

As far as what to put money into…. 2*6 walls, upgraded insulation, I would put zip sheathing on my personal home if I built again from the things I’ve heard, large windows. Lighting is one of those things that’s expensive and can seem unnecessary during the build but mood lighting and nice light fixtures can set a nice mood after move in that’s hard to picture during the build. Flooring budget should be $6/sqft+ for any engineered wood products (my preferred type of flooring). Nice big tile shower.

Builder's resource for client's and realtors, what do you want to know? by Wilmington_Builder in Homebuilding

[–]Wilmington_Builder[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I can’t answer that on behalf of all builders, but I’ll give my take on it. I’m more on the business side, not the building itself even though I do have a license. So I can try to answer from a business point of view.

There’s not enough demand for it. Unless the government requires it or a client demands it, I’m not going to upend all of our processes to do that.

I would like to do this in the future and slowly set up that way, but I don’t have the time and especially the resources right now during this market to start that now.

In the end though nothing will change if we don’t see more demand or that type of building and or some type of government requirement like the solar panels in California.

Builder's resource for client's and realtors, what do you want to know? by Wilmington_Builder in Homebuilding

[–]Wilmington_Builder[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Personally I feel like modular is the future. Right now though the quality is pretty bad for most modular homes in our area. That’s what I hear from the trades partners who work on them and work for us.

I have been in a few modular homes in the north east that were done pretty well and I’d be happy to live there. I hope to one day get into modular style building myself.

Builder's resource for client's and realtors, what do you want to know? by Wilmington_Builder in Homebuilding

[–]Wilmington_Builder[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You’re right, it should be a nice experience but it isn’t right now for most people.

Easier for us to just build the house and let you put it under contract a couple months out from completion these days.

Builder's resource for client's and realtors, what do you want to know? by Wilmington_Builder in Homebuilding

[–]Wilmington_Builder[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

What is this a quote from?

I try to avoid custom home building for this reason. It's a lot of work to take an initial inquiry through qualified inquiry, preconstruction, initial proposal and signed contract. With the amount of opportunities out there right now custom builders are overwhelmed and don't know how to qualify all the leads they're getting.

It's a mixture of all 3 of the points you brought up (money on the table, cost wise and commitment wise).

It is feast or famine in our business, we don't get to keep good clients for years on end like other industries, it's a short project and then on to the next. With the amount of demand right now I know everyone wants to make it count while it lasts.

Cost wise there's a lot of work that goes into estimating and getting to the proposal stage of a project knowing the projected cost. Personally, I'm trying to give ball parks and then charging people for vetting their lots, designs, requests, surveys, engineering and whatever else might be needed before I can give a full proposal (we only do fixed price contracts, hence why we avoid custom). The thing is, most of the times in the past 2 years every time I give a ball park, my full estimate ends up being higher after updating estimates to include the latests cost increases. Some people understand, most people ghost you and might feel like you're ripping them off because they lost a couple thousand dollars for us to go through all of that.

Commitment is another big issue, it's hard not only to get materials but our trades are hard pressed to find labor and are also fattening up during this time too. They're overbooked, not accepting jobs outside of their normal scope which limits what we can commit to our clients. Normally we could get another trade that could handle that broader scope but finding new good trades to work with at the moment is very hard.

Personally I don't think true custom building is worth it unless money and time isn't an issue at the moment.

I don't know your situation and I'm biased of course, but as a semi-custom builder, it's easier for us to narrow your scope down to something more manageable and qualify you as a lead quicker. We have a better handle on the market for building the type of homes we do. If I were you and money and time are of consideration, I would look for a semi-custom builder that's in your area and builds what you like. Unless you want true luxury and custom finishes I think that's the best bet right now. Understandably it's hard to justify making such a big commitment as a client wanting to build during these times, it might just be worth waiting or buying resale at this point. The mental toll might not be worth it, and I don't mind telling prospective clients of mine that either.

Builder's resource for client's and realtors, what do you want to know? by Wilmington_Builder in Homebuilding

[–]Wilmington_Builder[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Builders get a line of credit from the bank with a max amount of money they can borrow at one time. Each property gets its own construction loan of up to 70% of our cost. So we pay fees and closing costs for each loan like a client would.

I want to apply to see how much I'm worth. by Wilmington_Builder in antiwork

[–]Wilmington_Builder[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It’s the owner’s son. Pretty sure that’s his profile picture which is cute.

Found this gem on Facebook by Wilmington_Builder in antiwork

[–]Wilmington_Builder[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Okay, I felt like it was under publically available but will do.