Another Custom Home in McLean Virginia is almost completed.
Another real new custom home beauty designed and built by our award winning team
McLean Custom Home Designed & Built by PAramount Construction
This homeowner in Bethesda tells you why he chose Paramount to design and build their home
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Gold Award First Place Maryland New Custom Home
Read The Reasons why Bill chose Paramount Construction to
design and build his custom home:
BILL: My name is Bill Adams.
I work at the Urban Institute.
INTERVIEWER: And before how did you make
the decision to go through the design and build process? What
was your process?
BILL: Well I think you know we were thinking
about do we need an architect first, do we, and we did. We talked to a couple of
architects, had them come out to our previous home and we were struggling
at the beginning with do we expand the house
that we have or do we tear it down and build a new one. And so we were looking
for a little guidance there. The first, or
actually more than one, a couple of architects we talked
to they didn’t give us that on the initial visit. And it was
going to
require us, you know investing some money. We didn’t feel
comfortable with that. So we kind of just you know, some time
went by, we went to a couple of open houses. And then one
time we went to an open house for Paramount Construction.
Paramount Construction was building a house in Falls Church.
And we were really impressed by the house. Very you know,
well make house, very good quality, well designed. And immediately we both felt that wow, these are really top-notch builders.
And we thought right then and there you know, this company is going to build our house for us.
And when we met with the Paramount professionals, they came out to our old house and we were, as I said we were unsure about
whether we should expand our old house or tear it down. And they went through a couple of different scenarios but in the end,
we trusted them and they had the recommendation of tearing down the old house and building a new house. And we felt very
comfortable after that conversation with them that we were doing the right thing.
INTERVIEWER: How did the whole process go? The design process with Paramount.
BILL: The process went great, very smooth. We would meet on a weekly basis with Paramount staff, with the architect and others.
And it was, it was very well planned out and we had at various times make decisions about certain features and we weren’t always
sure about what we wanted. And so we were presented several alternatives and you know after talking a little bit with the architect,
we were able to make decisions very quickly. And in many cases he was, the architect was recommending things that we hadn’t thought
of and suddenly a light bulb went off and said yeah, that’s what we want.
So it was, in that sense it was, it was a pretty easy process.
INTERVIEWER: And how about the quality of the workmanship?
BILL: The workmanship is superb. Just looking around the house, I mean the features are excellent, very detailed features. Very, you can
tell just looking at it, it’s very high quality work. And we’re just extremely happy with the way it came out.
INTERVIEWER: And you looked at like standard builder plans as part of your research.
BILL: We did. We looked at some model homes. We talked to a builder, another builder and we went to see one of the homes that he had
built. And it was, it was okay. It was nice but it just, it didn’t have that spark. Okay, it was basically a big box and had some nice features
inside. But what appealed to us about Paramount was the customized nature and the different features we could introduce into the home
to make it unique and to make it our own. And so you know, we did compare with other builders but I think none of those other builders
had what we wanted. But right away with Paramount, we knew okay, this is a company that I can handle customized designs, can handle
special features, and build it all into a home that we’d be happy with.
INTERVIEWER: Do you feel you paid any premium for that?
BILL: No, I mean I think we, it was really included in the baseline price, which we very much appreciated. Just the fact that we could have
an architect available to us at no cost, it was included in the whole package, we thought was tremendous.
FEMALE: Yeah, especially after we changed the plans.
BILL: Right, that’s true. Several times we had to make adjustments to the plan because of various issues that came up, in some cases out
of our control because the county had certain requirements about the footprint, the building space. And that’s one thing that impressed
us is that Kevin, the architect for Paramount, was able to really come up with some excellent alternative designs that met our needs.
INTERVIEWER: Were there any additional design fees with all these changes?
BILL: There were none. There were none. So we really appreciated that aspect of the whole project.
Homebuyers want the benefits of more energy efficient new houses, but, are they willing to pay for these features?
Well, according to a recently conducted member survey of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) – Homeowners are not willing to pay that much for these features.
Only 57% of buyers were willing to pay more for “green
features” – 2% more, at most!
This is just more evidence that cost/benefit is a key factor in most buyers decision to GO GREEN.
Features that improve water efficiency were preferred more by home buyers in the west, while interest in using recycled materials is relatively higher in the Northeast, and rather low in the South.
Although only 11% of builders nationwide reported clients requesting environmentally friendly features, energy efficiency is still the primary motivation in the green building movement.
The NAHB said “In all, survey findings indicate that, as Congress continues to debate how to encourage more energy-efficient construction via new legislation, it must keep affordabilty in mind and look for ways to incentivize changes, not only to newly built homes but to the overall housing stock.”
Let me know how how important energy efficient and green features are in your new home plans. Send me an email at rob@paramountconstruction.net.
Also, you can send your questions to: MondayMorningQuestions@nahb.com.
Across the board (with the exeption of of a few vendors like appliances ) our vendors are reporting that their labor and material costs are relatively low. The pricing we have been getting for direct costs of new custom homes & large additions to homes in the Washington DC area have remained low for a few years now. However, we are noticing vendors getting slightly busier than they’ve been in the last year or two.
Here’s one of our excellent vendors, Glen Embry, of Metcalf HVAC, explaining what he thinks of the current market:
Our award winning staff architect has created over 60 new home plans in our Paramount Portfolio of New Homes that fit seamlessly into our Maryland, Northern Virginia & Washington DC area neighborhoods. You can choose from one of these new home plans, modify one of these new home plans or we’ll create a new custom home plan just for you. We’ll present an architectural rendering of the front of your new custom home and concept home floorplan.
Check out just a few new home plans here
5500 Finished Square Feet In This New Custom Home For Sale In Bethesda – 13,000 Square Foot Gorgeous Lot In Bethesda With a Walk-Out Basement. All This Designed By Award Winning Architect & Builder — Paramount Construction.
This neighbor loves the new home we built and designed.
You can see the new home here.
Check it out how “The Neighbor” positions for a free custom home in Bethesda: