Welcome to Trust the Process Podcast.
We're going to pull back the curtain on new home construction,
the real estate market and the trends shaping it all.
Discover the stories, insights, and expertise behind the process of building an home.
Join us and let's build something great together.
Welcome back to Trust the Process Podcast, where we talk about real estate, new home construction, and everything in between.
Today, we're going to be talking about the build process, the timeframes, some of the things that you can anticipate as we look at that build process.
I'm going to put up an outline and then Michael will give us a little bit more detail in terms of what what each of those means.
And so you want to jump in.
So I'm going to put this on here so you guys can see it too.
Great. Good. So this is something we wanted to get really into the weeds on.
More focused on what happens before the first shovel hits the ground, all the planning and all the costs and all of the city in jurisdiction hurdles and what that looks like to pull the curtain back on that process.
What does that look like to get us in the direction of the machines?
That's really broad. So breaking that into kind of chunking out and what components go into that.
Right.
We are still ultimately custom home builders and we do some build the suit business. So our timeline is heavy on the build the suit.
But this is what goes on with this company when it comes to looking at feasible spots for spec homes or built to sell projects as well as build the suit.
This is what your large production builders and your corporate builders are going through to an extent although there's some efficiencies that they pick up by building cookie cutter homes.
That's not out of sheer laziness. That's a that's a technique to deliver more homes.
It would take years to build out a neighborhood if they didn't do it this way.
So take this build the suit timeline with the grain of salt.
But this roughly is what goes on behind the scenes before you see any dirt being moved at a home site.
So when we look at a site we're looking at a feasibility. So is a center country club. Does it have designer view restrictions?
Restrictions do those design review restrictions match your taste. Is this something you want? This is maybe you want something very just.
So I'm sure in like Las Vegas where we build a lot is all Tuscan European and then you go to the North Shore you go to the ridges you go to a sky ad which are high in neighborhoods in Las Vegas metropolitan area third desert contemporary big sweeping roof lines.
A lot of glass, a lot of different earthy textures. So you want to look at the feasibility there and say okay is this a marketable product anything new can be marketed.
But you have to think okay well what is the appetite for this right now trends and we'll have entire episodes on trends trends have been moving away for the last decade away from that old world design away from heavy moldings and away from
and bellowed exterior and moving more towards more streamlined more modern clean lines I will say I'm starting to see it has come around the horseshoe there. We've got so far apart and now they're coming back together.
You're seeing more of earth tones you're seeing more natural woods clean and streamlined but let's have some nature hitting it.
So have some natural stuff everything is turned off and up like the one before period was so sharp.
Yes, but now it's sort of the clean lines with the warmer edge right but thanks to the two together.
It's coming back around and not to beat that up too much but it does inform what we're doing so when we look at feasibility it's kind of home can this can can be built here.
Does it match the taste of the market does the name right match your taste or their size requirements have to stay under a certain height does the parcel have views does the parcel have street noise and you're looking at all those things to kind of look at it as an oh am I going to be from purchase this.
And once you go to that step okay what what works here whether you're doing it for yourself or for sale.
And then once you go to that step okay this parcel is feasible and let's get something on paper and that's when you would employ an architect generally most are going to have an idea of what they want maybe some inspiration from other homes they've seen.
And you kind of go you know using that as a springboard but what we are looking at from a build a self standpoint is is there anything in my repertoire of homes that I've already built by a plans that I can either modify or just but early use again.
And that's kind of that part the design processes when you have an architect revisions back and forth and back and forth sign off on that set our textuals and then it goes through all the engineering and there are.
Approximately five engineers that touched the home during the during the design process and the and the pre permitting process concurrently if you're in an HOA while you're doing that you're generally getting your HOA.
Design review board to sign off on your design.
They take a long time so you want to start that usually yeah there you once you have a set of plans you're going to meet with your design review board and your HOA if you have one and they're going to see if your plans kind of fit from a technical standpoint and then also do the match with the theme of the neighborhood and I have.
A lot of back and forth and it can be a messy process and the advantage on the criteria within that HOA that's right.
And as you mentioned some are really strict and some are a little more fluid and and often we're building in an area where there isn't any H away exactly and those are your your tailoring your homes to taste and that's true free market at its best just saying okay.
What does the market want and with construction you're especially when you're in the pre planning and in the pre permitting phase your solid 18 to 24 months away from that home being sold and probably.
You know three months before that you're marketing it so you're trying to predict where is the market going to be what is the market want terms the size and price point number one what is it want terms style number two and then when you're sitting down from there you have do they want next gen living do they want space for mother and laws that they want for carcasses do they want accessories structures depending on the scale of scope of the house you're taking all that into consideration.
Once you've signed off on everything design wise as I mentioned it sees five different engineers going to see an electrical engineer to land electrical schematic and do the load calculations.
It's going to see a plumbing engineer that's going to draw where all the gas lines wastelines and supply lines go it's going to have an HVAC what we call mechanical engineer these plans are called maps serve MEPs.
So that's three engineers right there and then you'll have your structural engineer after your soils engineer that's why hesitated to say five because you could argue at six because we have a soils engineer and that goes out and borders the soil and does compaction tests and says okay your footers need to be this deep.
And you're low bearing on this soil maybe the soil needs to come out which we call over X and you're over excavating it and then putting it back.
Every foot that's down the road that's once we broken ground but those are the things that are called out during those tests between the structural engineer talking with the geotechnical engineer working along with the architect and the MEP engineer they all do need to talk to each other.
And that's where a builder is kind of access the liaison because no one's going to own your project the way you're going to own it.
Your builder is your second best proxy for that so if you're having you know you're employing custom home builder you want someone that you can trust that has the experience that can act as your advocate to say oh we've reviewed these plans.
This is constantly I commonly see the structurals are over engineered because an engineer's main purpose is not to save you money and build costs it's to limit liability on his own license.
So it just had a project in South Shore one of the ones we'll cover in a later episode that had a concrete bit come back at ninety three thousand dollars.
A home that I expected of forty five to fifty thousand dollars and you get the bid you know we're reengineering the house I looked at it he way over engineered for the soil's report he did footers that were two times water two times deeper what we saw was you know.
But of you know liability of void inside what shops at to another engineer paid for another set of structural plans but that six thousand saved me fifty thousand dollars worth of concrete slime so well worth it.
And then other efficiencies picked a huge and that's why the bill you know the building industry is not for the faint of heart when you've got when you have 15 of those and you make a fifty thousand one mistake it can be.
Yeah, and then the other engineer the final engineer but your civil engineers creating your great in planning creating your site plan and showing all the water's going to go on how the home is going to sit and how high the pad elevations are and.
That's your last engineer and then you submit that to the city and there's rigorous plan checks you might spend another three to four months getting your building permit issued.
So they're checking all those engineering designs and drawings and they're basically calling out things that either contradict the drawing or contradict one of the other professions drawing or is not in code or it's a labeling convention that is one of my biggest pet peeves when something gets sent back to you because it was just labeled.
And they find to come in in a way that keeps everything in sync but also this team wasn't crossed or this you know I mean there are some really very meticulous business and certainly facts the end result.
But certainly slow that question process 100% and in our jurisdiction they have 21 days once you submit things so every time you get a correction you've lost three weeks.
So you pretty much start back and they definitely want you in days start starts all over again and they reserve the right to find new things.
And sometimes it's being reviewed by a different person many times.
So things might not necessarily be something that just something that someone else saw around it.
Even the wrong just hot point for that particular.
Exactly.
So those are the biggest things that kind of slow us down so when we say it's six to ten months of pre shovel work you can see how quickly that adds up.
If you're spending a month just figuring out what you want to build there and then a month with your architect and then two to three weeks worth the revisions with that architect because what he sent back wasn't exactly what you had mind or as it.
Time has progressed you've decided something else is important to you or you forgot about something so we're generally seeing it with the architect for two to two and a half months.
So already at three and a half months and then it's going to sit with the engineers and you'll have to have surveys done topographical surveys and a soil testing and those things all take time.
And they 100 pound grill in the room is that they cost a lot of money.
At the end of the day we're looking at anywhere between twelve and thirteen dollars per square foot.
So if I'm building a four thousand square foot home, I'm spending on the order of sixty thousand dollars before my permit.
And then the permit is generally based on the size of the home, how many fixtures are in it.
So your permit is in our market is generally on a home like that another eight to ten thousand and plan check these are another 1500.
HOA is usually charge a fee. So on one of our luxury homes in South Shore and like Las Vegas is just an example between the HOA and all of the professions that go into the engineering and architecture.
It's around a hundred thousand dollars before I move my first speck of dirt.
100 thousand.
Just a home on paper.
Just a home on paper plus a half a million dollar lot or 400 thousand dollar lot.
Right. So there's a lot of guts and glory that goes into before you you've mobilized your first.
Lever on site. So it's definitely a trying challenging industry.
And then the horizon of time that you're looking at six to eight months it takes a lot of patience takes a lot of.
Grinding your teeth.
It's a long.
In on that I would say probably the jurisdiction.
But in real life probably the conceptual.
Just when it comes to customs for build the suit because this is someone's dream home and they're going to take a lot of time and they're going to send a lot of things back to the architect.
And they work on dirt not only architects time they like well we'll get back and then they come up with four other things and he's already done these other they don't think the way that I do want to build to sell.
I'm spending about as much time as you're seeing in that in that flow she jurisdiction.
I wish was 30 to 45 days in practice. It's probably 45 to 90 days. Everyone did exactly what they're supposed to do every single time.
I should be 45 days. But I would say trust home builders internally jurisdiction permitting H.O.A.
Probably remember build the suit would be a yeah would be the conceptual.
So essentially the intake and feasibility conceptual engineering and approval then the jurisdiction permitting an H.O.A approval.
And now there's a shovel in the ground is that I know you at that yes at the end of this.
At the end once you have a permit your shovel in the ground. Now I have a month's worth of site work under ground plumbing forms.
Photers right rebar. So I overlap and then of course the actual construction that's a that's the really the topic of the entire podcast.
That's another six to 18 months depending on how complex the build is if there's change orders. If there's hiccups in construction if there's again contradiction I just had this happen on a house that the plans contradicted themselves and they needed a plan check.
What is that mean?
Architecture architectials and the structures didn't quite match up based on a change that would happen after structural engineering.
We built it to the structures which were correct, but the architectials were updated and it was about six inches worth of a garage door which is an H.O.A. mandate.
So that's that's the kind of stuff that really gets to you.
You're in motion and hold the project.
Yes, it's very giant.
He pulled the plug in the entire project because the architectials that were stamped were six inches off on the garage door.
So then we had to have them redrawn simple, but then they had to be reevaluated by the city of Henderson another three to four week.
And no matter how good you think you are as a builder, those mistakes are going to happen and you just have to be okay with it.
That's why it's hard to answer when someone says how much does it cost to put them how long does it take to put them.
In the perfect world, I would say I've 4,000 square foot custom home. There's probably only four months of work.
It's just the delays and that and people can't trip over each other and things have to happen in sequential order.
At the end of the day, if it were more in assembly line, it would take you probably less than four months on a slick Monday to your Friday for four months.
Yeah, so that's.
That's a crazy crazy and we somewhat depressing statistic.
Yeah.
So we'll get further into each of these as we start talking more about our first project that we're going to dive into will be serenostate.
That's where we're going to jump into some of these timeframes and walking you through it.
So think things are going to get a little exciting from here and we've got lots more talk about.
And so we look forward to seeing you next time on Trust the Process. Bye bye.