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:
Paramount Construction nominated for another MNCBIA Custom builder award. Here’s a look at the inside and an interview of the homeowner. The judges from MNCBIA loved the home too. They almost wouldn’t leave. Click Here & take a look at this home we designed and built. This is a great example of why owners come to us for design and construction. Anyone can design a “plain-old-box” of a house. Lots of builder around town basically design and sell the exact same plan. You can actually get the plan at your local Giant or Safeway while you’re standing in the checkout line. We’ve discovered that the Washington D.C. area has many owners with more discerning tastes and sense of design. Our plans are designed differently.
Yet, as great as the design is, our pricing very reasonable. When we present a home price the price is all inclusive. Many other builders start at $85 per square foot over the phone. The problem is that by the time they add permits, excavation, engineering, dumpsters, driveways, upgrade the vinyl floor to wood, upgrade the vinyl siding to hardiplank their over $200 per square foot. Plus it takes these guys months of your time until you finally extract all the information out of ’em.
Let me know what you’ve found in the market place as you talk with building companies out there. I’d like to hear from you.
Check out Kevin taking another concept in his mind to a completed new custom home that was just nominated for another (2nd of 3) MNCBIA Custom Builder Awards. This new home in Bethesda was completed in around 5 months. The happy homeowners should be moving in any day now. If you would like a tour of any of our homes call 301-370-6463 and ask for Kevin or Rob. Check this video out:
Another reason it’s a great time to build your custom home — home prices are low and work quality is high. Here is an electrical contractor who works in the Montgomery County Maryland, Fairfax County Virginia, N.W. Washington D.C. area and works on new homes for area home builders:
Paramount Constructions’ “Madison” Home is winner of Maryland National Capital Building Industry Association Award. The category is Best Traditional Home Award
The Madison House Plan by Paramount Construction Kitchen
Design Considerations
The owners’ intent was to build a new home for sale.
Our design goal was to create a marketable house plan at a cost the owner could earn a profit.
We discovered that the lot was comprised of two separate lots. The largest lot was large enough to build a home on it. However, if we combined the lots we could build a wider home with an elevation that had more street presence.
After research and discussions with the county, we concluded that the time and cost of combining the lots was greater than the benefit, especially in a slow market. So we designed a narrower home than we could have designed had we opted to go through the subdivision process.
The lot sloped front to back. The grade of the lot made a walk-out basement plan a natural fit.
The lot is close to downtown Bethesda and the homes throughout the neighborhood are Traditional style homes. So we designed a Traditional style home with cottage and shake accents on the exterior to blend into the surrounding neighborhood.
We concluded from our market research and understanding of our target buyer, that an open floor plan would be appealing.
Another major design consideration was creating cost effective finished space to meet the lenders’ appraisal requirements. Finishing the basement and the third level achieved this.
Market research also drove us to place the laundry room on the second floor. This is a convenience the majority of the target market prefers.
The best view of yard was the back of the lot, so we placed the family room and kitchen as well as the master suite on the back of the home. All views from these rooms face out to the rear yard. The results is a very bright and open feeling.
Our goal was to make the home feel as spacious and roomy as possible, especially considering that it was a relatively narrow floor plan due to the self imposed lot constraint. To achieve this effect we widened hallways, we created a open loft area at the second floor landing area and we designed the dining room and living room to be open to one another, with minimal wall area. Construction Details
We wanted a low maintenance exterior so we specified Hardiplank siding and pvc cornice. The siding was horizontal clapboard siding with shake style Hardiplank accents at the gables to add interest.
The finished third level was constructed using room trusses. This saved money compared to stick framing this area.
We gave the owner lots of free upgrades because we wanted the home to show well to our future prospects (and she is a nice lady). One of the nice construction details we added was the stone in the front of the exterior of the home. We placed flagstone on the walkway and laid a stone water table to accent the front elevation. The wood floors were upgraded to three inch oak from 2 ¼” oak.
Montgomery County required installation of three drywells in the rear yard to contain water runoff from the home. We used terne standing seam metal roof on the front elevation to the Traditional design character. Specific Ways the house satisfied the client
The new home has a wonderful, bright, open floor plan. It is a great plan for a family with a wonderful rear yard, a walk-out basement with a ton of natural light, generous room sizes and very close to all of the restaurants and shopping downtown Bethesda has to offer.
The clients primary objective was to have house that fit into the neighborhood and was a good value. And a home that is marketable. The house was built affordably and we incorporated design elements into the home that didn’t cost a premium to build but result in value. The is very pleased with the design and the size of house we delivered. Unusual problems encountered and overcome
Originally, the owner purchased the home thinking she would remodel the 70 +/- year old structure that was originally on the lot. We actually drew a full set of plans for a major addition and had obtained a building permit for the addition.
We quickly performed a “new home” zoning analysis and created a new home plan that worked within the setbacks on the one parcel (so we could avoid the cost and time of a lot combination thru Park and Planning). We then pushed through permitting and obtained a permit for a new home. All of this took only a few months more time.
List of major manufacturers
Pella WoodMode cabinets Kohler Plumbing fixtures Hardiplank Certainteed shingles Kitchen Aid appliances Carrier heating and cooling Hinkley light fixtures
