The Actual Cost of a Custom Home

In episode three of the Dream Builders Podcast, host Adrian Kizy sits down again with Randy Najjar, founder of Sapphire Luxury Homes & Landscaping, to unpack what custom home building actually means — and why the answer is more nuanced than most people expect.

Randy walks through how Sapphire balances a curated portfolio of pre-designed plans with full custom, blank-sheet-of-paper builds, why finding the right piece of property is often the single hardest part of building in Metro Detroit, and why "cost per square foot" is one of the most misleading questions a client can ask. He shares real examples — from a 7,000-square-foot custom home on 160 acres of hunting grounds, to a Moroccan-style build with materials imported from overseas, to a recent Bloomfield project where the right lot finally checked every box after years of searching.

The conversation also gets practical: which decisions are worth investing in upfront, which can be deferred, and why Randy almost always recommends finishing the basement, landscaping, and major selections during construction rather than after move-in. Throughout, the theme is the same — guiding clients through hundreds of decisions, separating real needs from preconceived notions, and making sure no one builds a home they'll regret.

In this episode:
00:00 Welcome back to the Dream Builders Podcast
00:31 What it actually means to be a custom builder (and Sapphire's niche)
01:17 Portfolio plans vs. full custom design
03:01 Walking clients through homes at different stages of construction
04:30 The questions Sapphire asks every client — and the myths about formal dining rooms and resale
08:11 Lot constraints, tear-downs, and why the right property is the hardest part
12:02 A real example: years of searching, finally landing in Bloomfield
13:00 "How much does it cost per square foot?" — Randy's least favorite question
15:00 Why finished basements skew the math (and the million-dollar basement)
17:34 Why no two Sapphire homes are ever the same
18:00 Sapphire's typical price range, minimum engagement, and what's included
19:30 Custom vs. production builders — decisions you didn't know you had to make
20:30 The Sapphire style: Modern, French Country, Tudor, Mediterranean, and more
21:46 The biggest cost drivers in a custom build (and why land isn't just land)
23:30 Design phase budgeting and the 20% rule for upgrades
27:00 Needs vs. wants: what Sapphire won't cut corners on
29:30 The Sapphire Standard for structural components
30:00 Why finishing the basement during construction saves 20–30%
32:30 Landscaping, pools, and the case against phased projects
35:00 Educating clients so they never get blindsided later
36:18 When a plan gets over-modified

Connect with Sapphire Luxury Homes: 
www.sapphireluxuryhomes.com
instagram.com/sapphireluxuryhomes

About the show:
The Dream Builders Podcast is the unfiltered story of Sapphire Luxury Homes — what it actually takes to build a luxury custom home company from zero. Honest conversations about craft, cost, client experience, and the difference between luxury and expensive. New episodes every other week.
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Connect with Sapphire Luxury Homes: 

www.sapphireluxuryhomes.com 

www.instagram.com/sapphireluxuryhomes

If this episode resonated, please follow the show, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and share it with someone building something of their own. New episodes coming soon.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Alright, guys, welcome back to our third episode of the Dream Builders podcast. I'm your host, Adrian Kizzy, and I'm with Randy from Sapphire Luxury Homes and Landscaping. Um I want to take this episode in this direction because you're a custom home builder. Um there's a lot of things to discuss with that, but a lot of people kind of don't know what that means. And I've seen firsthand, especially where it can be very, very overwhelming. So there are certain decisions that you could make, but maybe not necessarily that you should. So tell me a little bit about that, like in your experience. Um, because I imagine if a client was involved in every single decision, that's overwhelming for everybody. It probably burdens the process. I don't even know that they want that, even though sometimes they think they do. So tell me how you navigate that part of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Yeah, so like you mentioned, we're a custom home builder, but but we do have a niche, right? You know, I've had clients come to me and say, Oh, I got this great lakefront property and I want to build this home, but it's only 2,000 square feet, or I got, you know, I want to build a barnum and whatever. Those aren't what we do. So can we do them? Sure, but it's not what we're great at doing. That's not what we are set up to do. You know, if if the client comes in and wants to design something within our realm, we have two opportunities or two paths that we could take. We have a portfolio of plans that we've pre-designed from from our best expertise on what we find clients want and need, right? You know, today's latest uh ways of living, right? Um, you know, if you go back every decade or so, life changes and and the way we use our homes changed, right? People used to walk in right into the family room, or the staircase used to be right in front of your face, or all these things, they change over time. You know, now you know the kitchens used to be completely separated, you know, with a door. Yeah. So we've curated uh about a maybe a dozen, 15 different plans, you know, what one-story homes, two-story homes with first floor primary bedrooms or primary suites, or two-story homes with second floor primaries, and sometimes two bedrooms on the first floor, two bedrooms on the second floor, which which we found is been a trend lately. The multi we call it multi-generational homes. Um, so anyway, we have a portfolio of plans that we've we've created that the clients can look through, or they tell us their needs and wants, and we tell them, hey, this works really well. And we could take that as our base or as our template, and then from there we can modify it, customize it to meet their wants and needs, their budget, or the lot constraints. Sometimes yeah. Um, I find that's definitely the easiest, uh, most cost-effective and fastest way to go about it, especially since we've built we're building anywhere from 10, 15, sometimes 20 homes are under construction at any given time. So we can walk. That's one of the cool things about what we do is we can walk the clients through these homes at different stages. Oftentimes, if we have a model home or a spec that's recently completed or homes that are nearing completion, we can take the client through that and get them to really understand a sense of the space. Yeah, whether it's uh the correlation of rooms or the volume, or you do you want a two-story great room, or do you want a raised ceiling? Do you want a large foyer? Do you want a small foyer? Some people think that's a waste of space, some people think that's a grand entry, right? Yeah. And all those decisions, those are the types of questions that we ask the clients. So we will guide them through that process. We have a checklist that we go through, and you know, what's important to you? Obviously, the number of bedrooms is important. Where do you want these bedrooms? You know, which floor? You know, a lot of times many of our clients, I mean, our clients range drastically in age, but if I had to say a typical scenario is um a family with kids that are late elementary, middle school, and where this is that next step, next evolution of their lives where they've where they've made money and and and they've been thinking about this dream home. So they come to us and we guide them through this process. You know, what's important to you? What space? Oh, some people think, oh, we need a formal dining room and a formal living room. Well, you don't need it. I mean, do you want it? That that's that's a different question. Oh, well, you have to have it. Well, why do you have to have it for resale? I was like, maybe 20 years ago that was true, but that's not really the case. Formal dining rooms are a rarity these days. Um, if you really entertain that way, or you eat dinner that way, or you do it often enough where it's yeah, it's a good use of that space, great. More than happy to design. We're designed a really, really cool one um right now for a client. Uh, but you don't need it because you think you need it. Yeah. So that that's the interesting part about being a custom home builder. Oh, people think about resale, and resale is important. I'm not sure discounting that, but there are aspects that people really don't care about, or are they gonna buy or not buy this house in the future because of this one decision or one space, right? Yeah. So I think when you're spending this kind of money and you're investing this kind of time, it's important to think about how you are going to utilize that space. So we'll guide you through that process. Now, if one of our portfolio plan uh plans within our portfolio doesn't work for you, or you just want something more unique, then we offer that as well. We do full custom design, blank sheet of paper. We're doing a super cool project right now, um, a little north of us, that's uh 7,000 square foot home with 4,000 square feet of finished basement. Then we have a whole separate fitness studio, then we have a whole separate like pole barn scenario, and all that was custom from scratch, exterior, interior, uh fit for the property because it's uh on 160 acres of hunting grounds, it's pretty pretty unique situation. So um we will tailor that approach, that design approach and the architectural approach to the client. Some know what they want, yeah, most don't. They have they have a general idea, right? I want a large kitchen, I want a big island. These are the types of feedback we get, which is for us fairly common, right? Yeah. It's how do we piece those things together to best fit your lifestyle, to best fit on the property, take advantage of whether it's the views of the property, you know, if you're a lakefront, we want as many of the important spaces on the rear of the home or golf front, right? Yeah. Or if it's a uh deep and narrow lot, you know, we would do a courtyard style garage. There's all these different decisions that we make based on the site conditions and constraints and the clients' wants and needs. And then I always remind my clients like you're two years away from from moving into this home. So if your kids are 10 and 12 right now, or five and seven, or whatever it may be, you gotta imagine they're two years on the line. And then you're not only building for two years from now, you're building for the next five, 10, 15 years. Right. You know, some people think they're forever homes. The reality, the vast reality is yeah, people don't live in homes forever, even at this scale, but at some point people outgrow homes, but at other points, people, the the homes outgrow them, right? Yes. Your kids move on, you've built this 7,000 square foot home, and it's just the two of you in the home or whatever the case may be. Right. Now you don't need that much square foot, so you downsize. So yeah, and we've done we've done some of those homes as well.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

And there's an interesting thing too, because you know, you mentioned, like, oh, I have to do this because of these preconceived notions. But I think on the flip side, too, you guys have seen things that maybe they didn't think about that you can kind of bring in. And I'm sure you get that out of that questionnaire, like, hey, why don't you think of this? Because I think this would be useful. So I think it's kind of like, you know, uh they they both benefit each other. But you said something interesting that I kind of want to touch on right now, because some people, I'm sure, are kind of thinking like they're ready to move in, they want to get in as soon as possible. Other people are like, this is my dream home, and you know, I'm gonna whatever it takes to get it right. So lot constraints. Have you ever had people fall in love with a plan or a feature so much so that they wait for the right lot rather than make the lot work? All the time, actually.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Yeah, yeah. Um in Birmingham, for example, the lots are relatively narrow, so you know you're you're very much constrained on the width of the home. And so sometimes we design a home for a client with anticipated size of property, and they are waiting for that right size lot, whether it's an 80-foot or 90-foot frontage in Birmingham, or um sometimes it's a teardown neighborhood that they really want to be in because it's an up-and-coming. I don't want to say up and coming because it's it's established, but it's it's it's rejuvenating, right? We're tearing down and rebuilding many homes in that neighborhood, and and they want to be there for one reason or another, whether it's proximity to their life or their family, their kids, or highways, or school districts, or whatever it may be, and waiting for that right lot that can fit the property that they want and their lifestyle needs, et cetera. So that's I will say actually, the most challenging part when a client comes to us and wants to build a home, custom home, is finding the right piece of property. We are not in a scenario like in uh Texas or other areas where there's tons of new developments going around. There's not a lot of development that happens in Metro Detroit, right? Especially at the custom luxury level. Um, there's there's handfuls of lots here and there, if it's even a handful, a couple here, a couple there, in newer neighborhoods. Uh otherwise, oftentimes we're doing teardown, teardown rebuilds.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

Yeah. And I to touch on that too, I'm sure like some of these lots just pop up wherever wherever you can get them, but I'm sure there's situations where people like they want to be in a neighborhood around other people or subdivision, you know, they don't want to be like one home on a you know, cul-de-sac or whatever. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

That I mean it's funny. My my wife and I talk about that all the time. When we so we built our home four years ago, and we're in a we're in a newer community with sidewalks, 150 other homes, all the same caliber, same age range, yeah, which we love. But for our next home, we want a little bit more property. We're on a half acre, which is not bad, but we want a little bit more land, a little more central to where we, you know, dine and hang out and whatnot. But the challenge is, you know, we're gonna be in a tear-down community more likely than not. Yeah, they might not be sidewalks, you know, you might have one really cool new house and then an older, you know, 1950s home that's not very well kept. So these are the trade-offs. And a perfect lot really doesn't exist. And if it does, it's it's super expensive, right? You know, or you're you're paying a major premium for that.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

Yeah, I think it's always like a negotiation that people are having with themselves, right? Like, what is that need? What is that want? And I think you guys can also, you know, guide people through that based on you know what they tell you.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Yeah. I mean, we perfect example. We just signed up a new client um yesterday, and Saba, our sales director, has been working with them for a couple of years. Uh, they live in the no-bye area right now. He works in Ann Arbor. They wanted to be in that area, but there was like nothing she was looking for years and they couldn't find the right property. And then we ended up picking up a piece in Bloomfield, and they ended up coming all the way here because it made it checked all the boxes except it's not as close to his work as they wanted, yeah, but they were willing to concede on that one thing, right? It was a in the newer community with sidewalks, gated, it was a corner lot which they wanted to face the right direction, etc. etc. Yeah, all the all the other boxes. So, but you you have to make sometimes you have to make conscious decisions of what's best, right? This is not gonna be perfect.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

I'm gonna put myself in the shoes of the client. I'm sure you get this question all the time. What's the true cost of building a custom home? What's that cost per square foot? What does that even mean?

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Yeah, that's like my least favorite question. Uh, especially the cost per square foot part. I mean, the cost per square foot is a very arbitrary number. You can build a 5,000 square foot home for 300 bucks a square foot, you can build a 5,000 square foot home for $1,500 a square foot. Yeah. Or you can take that fifth, you know, $5,000 square feet in in Miami or LA and it's gonna be $2,000. New York's gonna be $3,000 a square foot. What does that mean? So I use this analogy all the time. Like, how much does a car cost? Yeah, cars range dramatically, right? $10,000 to a million plus dollars. Okay, let's narrow that down a little. How much does a sports car cost? Well, you got Camaros at $25,000, $30,000. You got Ferraris or better, right? For hundreds of thousands. Well, how much does an American sports car cost, right? You can narrow it down, but it's hard to answer that question without knowing what I'm pricing out, right? Right. So we need a little more information. Um, can I give you generic or or arranges? Sure. Um, but it's hard to compare apples to apples when you're called when you're talking about cost per square foot, especially when you're factoring in things like finished basements, which aren't considered part of the square footage, right? Or landscaping, which have nothing to do with square footage, or land value, right? If the land is 200 grand or $2 million, that completely skews the per square foot value or cost. If you have a $100,000 landscape package or a $2 million landscape package, completely skews the cost per square foot consideration, right? And the finished basements are the crazy ones. Like you can spend a million dollars in your basement, no problem. Right. You know, we we I wouldn't say no problem. Most of our clients spend three to five hundred thousand in their basement, but we have million dollar basements. Yeah, but that increases the cost tremendously, but the denominator, the square footage, changes zero. Yeah. Right. So now you're you're adding two hundred dollars a square foot to the cost of the home, potentially, right, without without changing how many square feet they're counting. Because in in Metro Detroit, they don't count basements, even if they're finished as part of the square footage of the home.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

And I imagine that's also a challenge because that also seems to be the uh let's call the currency of comparison, right? When somebody's talking to multiple builders, sure, but you know, some builders might include more in that cost, whereas everything is a la carte. And I'm sure you've been in situations where a lower starting point, people end up paying more per square foot when they started adding all these things.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

All the time. Yeah. That's a great point. You know, there's other builders out there that kind of have a bare bones baseline, and they tell you say, you know, what's important to you, and we're gonna add those things, but that upfront cost is very intriguing, we'll say, because it's substantially lower than what we may be at. But what we include in our base is what we expect a minimum for our luxury homes, right? Now, with custom homes, sky's the limit, right? I sure we do all kinds of things that, you know, we we have a home right now where we're doing a three-story slide, right? How do you factor that into the cost per square foot situation? Yeah, it's really cool. So that particular home, they saw our Cameron model and they loved it, um, which that home was a 5,500 square foot home with a first floor primary. We ended up with an 8,000 square foot home with a primary on the second floor and a three-store slide. It's a completely different home, right? That kind of goes back to our initial conversation of uh really customizing, even though it was a portfolio plan or a home that they liked that we we that we had done that they saw. We took that and we completely customized it. In the past, there was like a little stigma. We'll say that we were a cookie cutter builder because we had a portfolio of plans. Yeah. When in fact, that's never been the case. Do we have a portfolio of plans? Absolutely, we do. It's to help guide our clients at it from a starting point for most clients that don't know where to start or what they want and need. But we even those are we never have built the same home twice. Every time we're pushing, pulling, adding, changing, yeah, or again, starting from scratch, full custom. So yeah, that's the reality is everything can be customized to meet your wants, needs, or budget, right? So we can work backwards. How much does it cost to build a home? Was your question, right? Yeah. There's so many drivers to that. You know, what kind of appliances and cabinetry and window package, all these different things that can play a major role. Square footage is one factor. It's a big factor, but it's not the only factor. Yeah, it's one of many factors. Um in general, most of our homes range without counting the land, because that can fluctuate dramatically. Sure. Um, in the range of when all said and done, $500 to $1,000 a square foot. Yeah. So for a 5,000 square foot home, for example, that that could be two and a half to five million dollars. Sure. Which would potentially include the home, all the fit and finishes, the finished basement, potentially the landscaping, et cetera. We and oftentimes that all of those things are packaged in in what we offer, right? Yeah. Um, on the lower end, it might be two and a half million. On the higher end, it might be five. It could be could be more, right? Yeah. Um for us at Sapphire, currently our minimum engagement is two million dollars. So without counting land, that's the minimum that we'll um contract for a new home. Yeah. Two million. But like I mentioned earlier, on average, most of our homes in that three to five million dollar range.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

And and contract contrasting that with like a production builder. Because I imagine that like a lot of these people are naturally taking the next step. It's not necessarily like I'm going from one high-end luxury home and building another one. It's very different when it's like a multiple choice, very safe decisions. And it it doesn't even just go to more complex decisions, right? It goes to decisions you did not have to make before. Or you didn't even know are there to make. Right. Yeah. And land is a perfect example because if you're dealing with a production builder in a subdivision, they're just part of it, right? Landscaping. The extent of that is usually sod and sprinklers, you know. So this gets buried into that cost per square foot in a custom thing. So it's it's very hard to compare to just like oh yeah, there's no comparison.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

It's the build. And going back to my real estate routes, I had represented numerous clients and in purchases of new builds, whether it was for the builders I was representing, or sometimes it was a Pulti or a Lombardo, or which are you know production style homes or semi-custom homes. Yeah. And yeah, that there's a there's a list of options you can choose from, and these are the options. Yeah, you want two-car garage or a three-car garage. Yeah, and those are your two options. Yeah, I mean, when it comes to garages, I mean, we've done all kinds of phase of things for garages, right? Um, and it's it's vastly varies, and it's and it's completely a whole different experience. With there is no list of options. We recommend things, yeah. We design based on clients' needs and styles, and our styles kind of run the gamut. We we go from you know, ultra modern, French country, English tutor, modern Mediterranean, traditional farmhouse, Scandinavian. I mean, you name it. We we've either built it or have designed it or in the process of building it, which I love. I love that wide array of styles. Now, oftentimes there there's a little bit of a sapphire twist to it, yeah, if you will, uh, where we kind of our signature look to a certain pers perspective, but yeah, um, they they and even those within those styles, the cost ranges so much. You know, an ultra modern flat roof house with predominantly glass is way more expensive to build than a traditional brick and stone, you know, uh home.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

Yeah. And and you know, to to what you just said, you know, like the sapphire style, I think that's important, right? I think a lot of people are looking at homes you've built or looking at your portfolio, like obviously like that style. It's you know, your way of doing things. Um from your perspective though, what are the biggest cost drivers? Like, where do things tend to potentially get out of hand in a custom home?

SPEAKER_00 21:51

You know, land, I'll just go back to land, because land isn't just land. Yeah. You know, if you were buying A you know, cookie, cookie cutter home in a developed neighborhood, the land, you know, there's little premiums for this lot or that lot based on if it's a walkout or whatever. But when you're doing a large piece of property, acre or more, and oftentimes these are tear-down properties or um they are comp they're just complex lots where you have to, you know, factor in cost for demolition or new utilities or moving utilities because there's power lines running through the middle of this of this property, or um, you know, the grade, which is you know, the ground itself. Is it is it rolling hills and is there is it flat? If it's flat, it's pretty easy. But if there's a lot of grade change to this and it's a walk-out, and we're gonna have to do retaining walls, and we're gonna have to pull dirt out, push dirt in, move things around to accommodate, that stuff all gets very expensive. It's not uncommon for us to guide a client through the land acquisition part of it and factor in $100,000, $200,000, $300,000 for site development on a land, a lot that kind of already exists. Yeah. But that's the reality of some of these homes. Uh, so that's somewhere that you know, we mentioned maybe a couple episodes ago. If if you're not thinking about this properly or guided through it properly, you may never realize that you bought this piece of land for 500 grand or whatever it may be. And there's another two, 300,000 that needs to be spent on it, right? You think, oh, I invested 500, I got to tear down this house and I'm ready to go. That's not always the case. So um site development is one of those things that's a cost driver. Um, we mentioned there is the upfront architectural phase of design and the interior design. Um, typically from initial conceptual budget that we what we create for a client where we say, okay, this give or take 5,000 square foot home with these features and amenities and this finished basement, this landscaping, you know, we're gonna ballpark whatever, $3 million for this home, right? Yeah. And then we tell them from there, as we go through the design process, I would factor in another give or take 20% of that price towards uh design decisions. So it's not, we're not trying to sell unrealistic expectations, right? We're not gonna say, okay, it's three million, you're gonna get everything under the sun for the price price button. That's not the reality. As we go through the design process, we present things that are really cool and unique that the clients really want and want to enjoy or or or fall in love with, or sometimes they see stuff online or at a friend's helm or whatever and say, I really want this, or they think of something. Oh, I want an elevator. Well, an elevator isn't a small ticket, you know, it's not a five or ten thousand dollar option. You get you know around a hundred grand to add an elevator, or they want a basement underneath their garage, yeah. Or they, you know, there's these big ticket items that sometimes develop as we're designing the home that could add costs. Um a lot of the you know, interior design skies the limit, right? You can get light fixtures for $500, you can get like light fixtures fifty thousand dollars, yeah, and and beyond. Um, we had a house where we imported Italian, yeah, custom Italian light fixtures that were $30,000, $40,000 a piece, Italian marble that came from literally from Italy on a boat. We were waiting for it. Um, that came that was super expensive. We did a Moroccan style home a couple years back that they were very true to that Moroccan style, and and we exhausted our American opportunities. Yeah, so they literally went to Morocco, found particular items that they liked, and we either had to recreate them custom in America, yeah, or we imported them over. Yep. Um I remember that one. Yeah, super cool house, and the clients were dedicated to that style, which I loved because it was it was unique, it was special. Um, and and again, it was a modern twist on Rick and Mansion. Um, but there's there's no limit to how much you can spend, right? Yeah, and again, I'll go back to a comment I made earlier. We can tailor the approach or the design to the budget. Yeah, so if you know your budget is X, I'll tell you, this is what we can do for X. Yeah, these are the more important, these are the need-to-haves bucket, and this is the want-to-haves bucket. Yeah, we'll get all your need-to-haves, and maybe we'll get some of the want-to-haves. Right. You know, the challenge becomes when clients have a lot of want-to-haves, but not the budget for it necessarily. Yeah. Then we have to be strategic. What can be done later? Yeah. Or what can we live without, or what can we value engineer in a certain way? Well, how can we accomplish this look without necessarily importing Marvel from Italy? Yeah. Those are the types of things that we we do sometimes to to meet budgetary restrictions.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

And I'm glad you brought that up because that's the direction I wanted to take this in. Um, the directions of like needs versus wants. So from your perspective, um what aspects are like like you don't cut corners here, like you'll regret this later. What are some of those things that maybe people are thinking about, but you're just like, no, you really should do this, or you'd, you know, you'd be disappointed later.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

Yeah. This the structural components of the home, those are non-negotiables. You can never change those. So what I mean by that is the size of rooms or closets. Oftentimes clients come to me and they draw an arbitrary line. I'm not gonna cross 5,000 square feet. That's my maximum size that I want. Well, fine, but do all the rooms and and the things that you want, can they actually make sense in that number? Or what if we end up at 5,100 to make things right? And they're, oh no, I want to be at 5,000. And then they make concessions on spaces that they will they do regret or would regret because they make a closet too small or whatever it may be, bathrooms and mud rooms, and all these ancillary type spaces where people allocate proper space to family rooms, kitchens, dining, but then they sometimes decide to take space out of a laundry room or kids' bathrooms or whatever, which you know, for a few extra square feet. This is the this is your opportunity, right? You're it's not crown molding that you can change or paint regular or carpet. Not that we do a lot of carpet anymore, but um, these aren't things that can be changed. Ceiling heights, that's another structural component, right? You know, do you want that volume, that additional height, um, the exterior facade, you know, whether we're using brick, stone, limestone, ephus, metal, porcelain, siding, whatever it may be, that you know, there isn't a chance. It doesn't make sense to try to change that later, right? Right. So those are the areas that I recommend we don't cut corners on from a from a structural stability perspective. That's not even an option. We're not gonna even give you an option to cut corners. We're only gonna use the best grade of lumber, the best subflooring, uh joist, floor joists, things of that sort. Yeah, those aren't even places that you that's the sapphire standard. That's the sapphire standard. We won't negotiate that kind of stuff. Are there cheaper alternatives out there? Of course, absolutely there are, but we won't build with those products. We want to I want to sleep well at night, knowing that I'm not gonna have issues with these homes down the line, right? Um so I would say those where people could and sometimes choose to pull back from a budget perspective is like the basement, right? We can choose to pre-finish the basement now and you can finish it down the line. Yeah. Or interior sometimes interior selections, uh, where they can uh do things later if they choose. The reality of it is when you get to this level of home, most of the times clients don't want to have you know honeydew lists or projects to do right after they move in. Sometimes it's required based on budgetary constraints, but for the most part, we if if the financing is there, you know, we strongly recommend just doing everything at one time. You're moving into a fully, complete, ready home to the point where you just gotta bring your clothes right and and you've moved in.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

And I think too, uh, and I'm sure you can attest to this, but a lot of times you can do things later, but a finished home is a lot different than a home under construction. You know, if you did absolutely paint or trim and these are people disrupting, you know, your living and making a mess and dinging this and that and the other, and you know, even pricing-wise, right? Like I've I've been in situations where we did some trim work in my house after the fact was completely different than if I would have just had the builder do it at the time. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 31:17

Yeah, yeah. And I've I've mentioned that the clients, like, if you want to finish your basement after the fact, it's gonna be 20 to 30 percent more expensive because, well, they're like, why? It's the same material and labor. Well, if I'm bringing the plumber here and he's plumbing this whole home and he's got to add a bar and a bathroom downstairs, I can negotiate that price far better than if I'm bringing them on a whole separate project just to do a bar and a bathroom, right? And the same goes for the framer and the drywaller and whatever the case may be. Plus, it's all happening sequential within the home. So where we may add three months to the build to do it during construction, it may take six months to do it after the effect. Right. And getting people in and out of your home, and oftentimes contractors like to work work at like six in the morning, ringing your doorbells and tramping, trampling through your home and banging and cutting and dust. It's it's definitely a nightmare. Yeah. Uh we have gone back and finished basements for certain clients after the fact. I mean, it's it's not an easy process, and it's it's it's very uncomfortable, right? Yeah. If you if you can find a way to do it, if you know you want to finish the basement, the recommendation is to do it during construction. Same with landscaping. You want to pull into this brand new multi-million dollar home that you're built and feel proud as you approach the home, right? Curve appeal matters, and and not having dirt or just grass up to the house. Right. It doesn't look good, it doesn't feel good, right? Yeah. Um, you know, even you know, we've had many people do pools or patios as a second phase on the line. But do you really want to wake up to that every day for six months and whatever? And they're tearing up your front landscaping and you know there's restoration costs, there's yeah, you know, tractors or track loaders or things going back and forth and pumps and pool equipment or whatever it may be. Yeah. Sometimes you have to tear up things in the finished basement because you got to get new electric because it wasn't planned for potentially. Um obviously I understand budget's a real thing, right? People have certain means uh and and goals or or financials that we have to work around, and and I'm all for that. Um we just we guide the best that we can, and we'll ultimately it's in the client's decision to make what's what's what's the in their best interest.

SPEAKER_01 33:41

Yeah, and I've seen that too, like in the onboarding process where um you know you you kind of help clients make these decisions. I think I recall recently I was sitting in on one, and you know, they were contemplating not doing the basement. And there's no pressure one way or the other, but you kind of ask, like, if this is something you plan to do the next year or two, do it now. If it's your five, ten years down the line, maybe we'll never do it. You know, I've seen you tell people don't do it too. So um it it it it's specific to each each family, right? So absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 34:12

I mean that that's the reality, right? If if you're gonna you're gonna go through this two-year construction process only to be following up with another six months of construction, it it's painful. Yeah, right. It's it's not we make this journey as seamless as possible and and as easy, but it's there's a lot to it to building a home. It's not just checking boxes or you know, when you're when you're picking out a car online, even that sometimes is daunting. Right. There's certain trim levels and certain options that you can choose from, and and it is what it is. You can't unless you take it after and customize it, but there aren't millions of options or right, but in a home, there is, it's not the same. Yeah. So yeah, we definitely guide the client, and and I'm constantly considering their lifestyle, yeah, budget, you know, their their what their stage of life, um the design of the home, the health of the home, whatever it may be in these decisions. We we don't we guide our clients, and we I tell the every client up front, my goal is for you to educate you to make the best decisions for you and your position and your family. Yeah. What I don't want to happen is I don't tell them about something, and then six, 12 months down the road, they're talking to a friend or they see something on TV or online, they come back to me. Oh, I really want whatever maybe a heated driveway. Yeah. Oh, well, it's way too late to do that. Right. Well, you never even told me about that. Right. So we we talk about common requests, common things that people want. Yeah. And we discuss it and we price it out and and we weigh the pros and cons, and then they can decide, yeah, that's that's something I really want. I'm willing to invest in. Yeah. Or it's not that important to me, and it's I I'm not that's something I can skip.

SPEAKER_01 35:57

Grant, and that's one of the worst things, too, I think, is like not presenting something or assuming something, and it's like you take you take away their ability to make you know that decision. Yeah. Um, I want to end this with something that I observed that like was I thought was like really interesting, and it just goes back onto that whole process where kinds of like, what are your needs? And it goes back to something you said about people kind of draw like an arbitrary line. I won't cross this and that and the other. And a lot of times they start with a great plan, it's like 70% there, and then you start kind of modifying it. And I've seen like plans change, like a plan got modified so much that you went and pitched a you know what? This one might start checking those boxes and a lot less changes, and it ends up being marginally more expensive or not more, or less, you know, whereas in the beginning it was just like, oh no, I'm not touching that. So a lot of times it's just like you know, modifying it too much to make it work, and there's just something else that just kind of fits better.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

So yeah, and that happened with a client recently where yeah, we designed something for them and they kept, oh, I want to add this space and I want to add that space, and I want this space here, and I want space, and it got really convoluted and and kind of clunky, if you will. Yeah, and I'm not loving the direction that this is going, but we had we had started in this way, and they were kind of, I don't want to say they were married to it, but they were comfortable with it. Yeah. Um, and and I'd I just was thinking, I was like, you know what? That oh, they wanted a second stairface, that's what happened. And yeah, and I was thinking to try to fit that into this mix, is it's just becoming way too messy. I have this other design that we had come up with that I think fits most of these things and flows just so much better. Right. And so I presented that and it ended up being almost the same cost with more square footage, so ultimately less cost. Right, yeah. Uh, and it worked out better, and they that's where they decided to run with, and just it turned out to be a better scenario all around. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 38:04

Yeah, that's another episode in the books. Stay tuned for more episodes like this and more insights into the building process and the building company and Sapphire. Thanks, Randy.