Homebuilder Recommendations

14,196 Views | 65 Replies | Last: 2 yr ago by KaneIsAble
cavscout96
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jac4 said:

So I've got a question about the soil sample -> engineered foundation.

Is it possible to get a soil sample and not need an engineered foundation? Or is it like going to the orthodontist and everyone who shows up there gets braces?

Engineered foundation doesn't automatically mean $$$ engineered slab. It might, but not necessarily. As stated your soil may a) not be "as bad" as commonly thought and you'll save on a foundation that is not way overbuilt, or b) there may be solutions other than massive earthwork, back-fill, void forms, and very thick slabs.

In the end, you'll have a reasonable expectation that you won;t have to do $$$ foundation repair within a couple of years of building.
Bigderk21
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Ridgewood custom homes!!
Broncos
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Anyone have any experience with Robbie Robinson Homes?
TxFig
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musicforall said:

I have been househunting all year. The new build houses all look the same. Am I the only one not thrilled with shiplap everywhere? All-white kitchen and living room all one big room split by an enormous island? Five years from now this will look as dated as avocado green and harvest gold.They will probably call it Waco white. I currently live with an open concept kitchen/living room but not as open as the ones now being built. So my living room furniture smells like whatever we had for dinner last night and no one can watch tv while I am cooking or washing dishes because it is too noisy. Plus everyone who walks in the house can see whatever meal is in progress. I guess I need an old house.


Do what I did - design your own house. I went so far as to get one of those architect programs for my PC so everything could be laid out exactly.

Then find the builder who will do YOUR design. I think we interviewed 5-6 builders before we found one we liked. He only built (past tense) 6-7 homes per year, and no more than 3 going at the same time. And he was willing to work with us since (in order to keep costs down) we were going to do quite a bit of the work ourselves (something virtually no other builder was willing to do).

Sadly, our guy doesn't build homes any more...
--
Chris Barnes
Retired A&M IT geek - now beekeeper
http://www.cornerstonehoneybees.com/
Mister Mystery Guest
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Hire a good architect, ask them the question you asked here, and ignore everything you've read on this board, unless you also hear the same thing from your architect.
Dillotat
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Thanks for the suggestions. We've interviewed several and may have chosen one. I've been able to tell a lot by the quality of building products used in their own offices.
EcoZapp.AC&Air.Purifiers
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Dillotat said:

Thanks for the suggestions. We've interviewed several and may have chosen one. I've been able to tell a lot by the quality of building products used in their own offices.
- After being in ~1000 Attics / On Top Roofs / Hunting Termites inside walls etc.. the best advice I can give, is to visit the Parade of Homes Route and poke your head inside attics / look around other houses mid way thru the building process. (I have one of those Architecture degrees and it's crazy IRL some of the residential construction that can be found/ accepted in 2020)

I wouldn't judge on models or showrooms - thats salesmanship; driving thru a new construction area and walking some houses, might help show some difference to compare builders

Homes get built by a combo of Trades & Subs, many of which are highly inconsistent over time.
Even maybe more now in Covid times, the product in which any builder may have put out years ago ( or just last year) might not be the same.

Listening to recommendations might be good, always biased to X degree, however seeing what a homebuilder's products are looking like 'Today' with 'Today's Subs/ Trades' is what I would suggest.

txxwildcard
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EcoZapp.AC&Air.Purifiers
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I stopped by to give the OP my 2 cents to maybe help out, and someone always has to follow me


- So far the only Top Techs we've lost have earned their HVAC contractors licenses while working for EcoZapp and I believe have start their own businesses already. Seriously, come work with us and we'll help you to get licensed and thus be able start your own business if desired.


- In fact I believe ~10-12 former EcoZapp employees pest/ hvac have now started their own ventures after working for EcoZapp ( it's something we almost encourage, Skilled Trades are tough and maybe some learn some of the entrepreneurial side of things while with us).

  • Now, if you're assuming we didn't pay someone overtime; That's a false accusation on a public forum sir. IDK we have ever put a limit on overtime no matter the season. We have GPS, HVAC software, HR Software plus an accountant. We doc every step of every HVAC service / Install we perform, this greatly helps to make any margins of error for adding up hours pretty small.
I swear, it's like anyone who remotely knows an HVAC guy with a Texags account automatically has to follow me around,

Txxwildcard; I know you're a homebuilder and I guess i'm sorry if you took offense to my comments about homebuilding in the area. Not directed at you, at least I don't think.. idk who you are
Rex Racer
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TxFig said:

musicforall said:

I have been househunting all year. The new build houses all look the same. Am I the only one not thrilled with shiplap everywhere? All-white kitchen and living room all one big room split by an enormous island? Five years from now this will look as dated as avocado green and harvest gold.They will probably call it Waco white. I currently live with an open concept kitchen/living room but not as open as the ones now being built. So my living room furniture smells like whatever we had for dinner last night and no one can watch tv while I am cooking or washing dishes because it is too noisy. Plus everyone who walks in the house can see whatever meal is in progress. I guess I need an old house.


Do what I did - design your own house. I went so far as to get one of those architect programs for my PC so everything could be laid out exactly.

Then find the builder who will do YOUR design. I think we interviewed 5-6 builders before we found one we liked. He only built (past tense) 6-7 homes per year, and no more than 3 going at the same time. And he was willing to work with us since (in order to keep costs down) we were going to do quite a bit of the work ourselves (something virtually no other builder was willing to do).

Sadly, our guy doesn't build homes any more...
Which architecture software did you use, if I may ask?
Dillotat
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I'm with you on the non-shiplap style. Luckily, I've been keeping an idea book for about 15 years, and the ideas that I still like after all this time will be the ones I incorporate into my next house.

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Orlando Ayala Cant Read
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AggieDoc31 said:

Bumping this thread. We have recently purchased a lot in south CS and plan to move back soon. Anyone have an update on builders they'd recommend? We've spoken with Bluestone, Pitman, and Magruder.


Try Raven Homes
AgProgrammer
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I second Raven, they'll be on the upper end. Southwest Homes is another good quality builder.
BulldAg99
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We decided to build with Pitman, but in addition to John Magruder, I really liked Jason at Southwest and he came highly recommended. Jo
dr_boogs
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Crowley Custom Homes. He is exceptional, one of the best in the area. PM me if you need details. We live in Williams Creek.
AnchorFoundation
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jac4 said:

Is it possible to get a soil sample and not need an engineered foundation? Or is it like going to the orthodontist and everyone who shows up there gets braces?

Yes, it's possible.

Go to the right engineer like going to the right orthodontist (mechanic, doctor, vet...) and you'll get honest answers to your questions and concerns. The good ones don't need to overhype and sensationalize to drum up business.

Besides, when going to the ortho... you kind of know the answer right? It's just a matter of is it worth it, when to do them, what type, how much...
Broncos
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Ridgewood builds a great house. They are also really easy to work with.
legalbird
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Is Century Classic still around??
jphil1
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We are moving from DFW to BCS and are building a home with RNL right now. Home due for completion in June RNL is a pleasure to work with. They are straight forward, no bs and have customer service top of mind. I can highly recommend them.
Orlando Ayala Cant Read
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jphil1 said:

We are moving from DFW to BCS and are building a home with RNL right now. Home due for completion in June RNL is a pleasure to work with. They are straight forward, no bs and have customer service top of mind. I can highly recommend them.


From slab pour to expected completion/move in how long are you expecting the build to last?
exalted512
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I'd highly recommend Magruder. I'm surprised to see there were a few people on here recommending Reece. We had really liked talking to them and even started the process of having them build our house. We had a builder back out before we went to Reece as he was a smaller operation and ended up just being too busy. We were upfront with Reece and asked right off the bat that we just wanted to make sure they would not back out on us and they said they wouldn't. Long story short, they never met a single deadline (like getting revisions back) and never reached out to me. I always waited until after they said they would have something done and then had to reach out to them. After almost two months of waiting on them to get us revisions, we finally gave up on them. We were told that we would get the first set of revisions (on a plan that was almost completely done) on January 27th and they ended up not going to be ready until March 17th. For the FIRST set of revisions. We had originally contacted them to let them know we wanted to go with them on December 14th, 2020. Wasting our time with them put us three months behind schedule.

I think the problem with a lot of "Custom" home builders in BCS is that they're not really custom home builders. They'll let you pick out the colors and the tile and call it a custom house. If that's what you're looking for, then great. If you're looking for a truly custom house, don't be fooled by the word "custom". You'd be better off looking at "Design-build" companies. The very first question I would ask is "how many homes that you build are from floorplans they haven't used before?" Anything less than 50% and I'd move on.
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jwhitlock3
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Broncos said:

Ridgewood builds a great house. They are also really easy to work with.


We built with Blackrock which is Thomas Pack's step down from Ridgewood, more of a tract home where we picked some finishes like flooring, tile/grout, paint, brick colors etc. This isn't the level of home you're looking to build, and we didn't interact with them a ton but I can vouch for the ease of working with them as individuals. We had talked to Reece and they didn't give us the impression they had the time to deal with us or our budget. We made some concessions going with a cheaper home but they were open to just about every upgrade we wanted to make from finish trim to changing all the lighting and fixtures, garage insulation including door, taller kitchen cabinets, larger water heater etc. In the end we made probably 30 small changes and they did everything short of modifying floorplan. Structurally the homes are almost identical but the finish out and lack of floor plan modifications made it a better entry price for our growing family.

Our next door neighbor's built a Ridgewood and it's beautiful and Thomas was out there all the time.
exalted512
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AggieDoc31 said:

Any particular things you liked about Magruder?
I toured a couple of their homes that they were building, and while not a construction specialist, I know a bit about it. Nothing seemed off and the level of detail in a few areas was something I could really appreciate. Additionally, I have a friend that's an architect out of Houston and he's worked with them on a few higher-end products and were very pleased with the quality. We had met with him to build our house, but they are a tad on the expensive side. Had it not been for the pandemic and the absolutely astronomical prices of lumber (and several other materials), we would have likely gone with them anyway. However, it put them about $20,000 over our absolute max budget.

Schaefer Homes was another one that we considered as well. Magruder seemed more our style, but I don't think we would have been disappointed with Schaefer. They were similarly priced.

I will say, just from September 2020 to today, the price to build our home has increased about 13.5%. And September was already higher than just a few months earlier.

Moral of the story, no one knows what lumber is going to do, but lumber is at record highs right now. If you can wait a year to build, you could potentially save tens of thousands of dollars...but at the expense of likely higher interest rates.
Orlando Ayala Cant Read
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I've heard great things about Magruder but I'm curious on their current project volume. They are doing like 5 houses right now in the new Pebble Creek phase (all seemingly large 3500 sqft+ homes) and I'm wondering if they have the staff/mgmt in place to really pay attention to detail on each home. Not saying they don't, but just wondering.
exalted512
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Orlando Ayala Cant Read said:

I've heard great things about Magruder but I'm curious on their current project volume. They are doing like 5 houses right now in the new Pebble Creek phase (all seemingly large 3500 sqft+ homes) and I'm wondering if they have the staff/mgmt in place to really pay attention to detail on each home. Not saying they don't, but just wondering.
I would imagine that is every home builder everywhere right now. When we talked to Reece, they had just hired more staff to keep up with the volume.
Snowball
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Keys & Walsh
75AG
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jwhitlock3 said:

Broncos said:

Ridgewood builds a great house. They are also really easy to work with.


We built with Blackrock which is Thomas Pack's step down from Ridgewood, more of a tract home where we picked some finishes like flooring, tile/grout, paint, brick colors etc. This isn't the level of home you're looking to build, and we didn't interact with them a ton but I can vouch for the ease of working with them as individuals. We had talked to Reece and they didn't give us the impression they had the time to deal with us or our budget. We made some concessions going with a cheaper home but they were open to just about every upgrade we wanted to make from finish trim to changing all the lighting and fixtures, garage insulation including door, taller kitchen cabinets, larger water heater etc. In the end we made probably 30 small changes and they did everything short of modifying floorplan. Structurally the homes are almost identical but the finish out and lack of floor plan modifications made it a better entry price for our growing family.

Our next door neighbor's built a Ridgewood and it's beautiful and Thomas was out there all the time.
Thomas built ours. Wish we had the same experience. While we're happy with almost everything, the driveway and sidewalk work was/is a disaster, and he's done nothing but blame "rocks and pebbles in the pour". I'll try to find pictures to show, but we'll likely have to replace parts of both before we ever sell. I understand issues with subs, I don't understand the builder not willing to stand up and fix those problems. He built our 4 years ago, maybe he's more responsive today.
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IWannaGoFast1
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KaneIsAble
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Post for Irongate. Good dude who builds in some change orders along the way whether he'll admit it! Seamless process and good folks. There were others close but lots of tract home builders who wanted to reference plans already in their arsenal. We didn't want someone else's house; been there done that in Castle Rock.
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