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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.

These are not “cookie cutter” homes. Take a look here

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

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

New custom homes in older neighborhoods increases values of surrounding properties