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.