Why Cost Per Square Foot Is One of the Most Misunderstood Numbers in Custom Home Building
“What do you build for per square foot?” It may be the most common pricing question in custom home construction—and one of the easiest numbers to misunderstand. Clients want a simple benchmark. Builders want a fast way to evaluate plans. Investors want to compare opportunities. Cost per square foot is useful for all of those […]
Cost Plus vs. Fixed Price: How Your Custom Home Builder Actually Makes Money
When homeowners compare custom builders, they often focus on architecture, craftsmanship, schedule, and price per square foot. One question that deserves just as much attention is how the construction contract is structured. Two of the most common approaches are cost-plus and fixed-price construction. Neither method is automatically good or bad. They simply allocate risk, transparency, […]
Stop Buying Cheap Land: Why the Cheapest Lot Can Be the Worst Real Estate Investment
A cheap lot can be one of the most expensive mistakes in residential real estate investing. That sounds backward. Investors naturally want to buy land for the lowest possible price. If one acre costs $150,000 in a more rural area and a small infill lot costs $300,000 closer to an established neighborhood, the acre can […]
The Biggest Waste of Money When Building a Luxury Home
Luxury-home budgets can get out of control quickly because almost every category has a premium version. You can upgrade the windows, appliances, lighting controls, plumbing fixtures, audio system, flooring, cabinetry, hardware, landscaping, pool equipment, security, and dozens of other components. Individually, each upgrade may sound reasonable. Collectively, they can add hundreds of thousands of dollars […]
The Electrical Walk: One of the Most Important Meetings When Building a Custom Home
One of the most expensive times to realize you forgot an outlet is after the drywall is installed. That is why the electrical walk is one of the most important meetings during a custom-home build. On a set of construction plans, most of the electrical layout has already been drawn. The plans show switches, outlets, […]
Builder vs. Developer: Why Building a House Doesn’t Make You a Real Estate Developer
In real estate, titles get thrown around loosely. Investor. Builder. Developer. General contractor. Sometimes people use the words interchangeably, but they describe very different businesses, skill sets, risks, and responsibilities. One of the biggest distinctions is between a home builder and a real estate developer. Building a beautiful home—even an expensive custom home—does not automatically […]