Today we’re gonna be talking about building custom homes, new builds, and some of the pitfalls, and some of the things to watch out for, and understanding that process, and what customers should be looking for when they’re looking to do a new build.

What are some of the main things people need to understand as they consider building their dream home, building that custom home that they’ve always wanted?

When you and I discuss these things, it really comes back to when we first built our homes.

The goal for what we were trying to accomplish with Kingdom and Co was to give the customers an experience that we wish we would have had.

And so I feel like that’s where I draw a lot of my passion for new builds, is to be able to give the customers an experience of, come to one place, talk to top-end designers, design a beautiful home, and be able to walk away, and it’s done, and mission accomplished.

You got this beautiful, gorgeous home, because when you build a home in Las Vegas, it is very complicated on the back end.

And if you’re not prepared for that, it can be very discouraging, it can get very expensive, it can be a disaster.

There’s several properties around town, you know some, who, they have actually gotten stuck.

They’ve blown their budget, they’ve gone into it without a good plan, without a good design, they’re making decisions as they go along, and they run out of money.

Yeah, so a friend of mine, she came to me, and she’s like, hey, here’s my game plan, I’m tempted to, I kind of want you guys to do it, but I’m not sure, and we basically came to the conclusion she didn’t want to go with us, because she wanted to go the more affordable route, or I should say the cheaper route.

Not affordable, it was actually more affordable working with us, but what she ended up doing was she ended up hiring a cheap architect, took him forever to design.

They didn’t even hire a designer, because they could design on their own, right?

Or they thought they could.

And so, long story short, she is now into this house a ton of money, the house is hodgepodge together, and to make things worse, they’re stuck.

They’re not even at drywall yet, and they’re out of money.

Because in their mind, they could talk themselves into, no, it’s easy, it’s easy, it’s easy, I’ll do it myself, I’ll do it myself, I’ll do it myself, and they didn’t work with a team that could save them time, money, and efficient.

Sometimes you really do have to spend money to save money, and there’s a lot of people that will go into this process, and they’re so hesitant to spend on a decent set of plans, and it could be 10, 20, 30, 40K, and in that design and architectural package, and they’re so crazy, to them it’s such a difficult concept to think that I’m paying this much for soft costs.

It’s so much more expensive on the back end though, if they don’t do that, because there’s nothing more expensive than a bad set of plans.

There’s that home of your friend you were telling about, the home looks like everything’s an afterthought, because it was.

And so, being able to go into that process with a clear set of plans, a clear roadmap, and then that’s what gives you the ultimate execution on that property and makes it turn out fantastic.

The other way of doing it, there’s gonna be so many change orders, like you said, you’re gonna run out of money.

And so yeah, it’s okay to spend money to save money.

You’re gonna get that money back in savings in your execution.

Well, it’s funny, because on the same street, I have three other friends that are now building that did take my advice.

It’s incredible to see how fast that the project’s already going, how much better design they are, and in the end, because we have all the, because we have so much volume and all the hookups with everything to build a home, their cost is lower than the lady I was just telling you about.

And so, it’s crazy to me that she thought she was saving money because she was gonna do it herself, but in the end, she’s lost.

Obviously, picking the right group, obviously with Kingdom & Co., we’ve structured that to help people with a full service pre-construction process.

So it’s design, it’s plans, and then we’re working with the architects, sorry, working with the engineers to pull together that full submittal package and getting through permitting with the least amount of back and forth.

Whether you’re in county or city, our building departments in this valley are really stringent, they can be really picky, and can cause all sorts of issues if you don’t have your stuff together.

Yeah, and they can take forever if you don’t have, if you don’t know what you’re doing, or if you don’t have a rapport or a relationship with these people down in the city and the county, which we have, which is great.

And go back even further, the experience that people want, they wanna be able to buy a piece of property, so you have to have a realtor who knows what the heck they’re talking about.

Because if you have a realtor who- Just does homes.

Just does homes, they’re not gonna know, well, is gas close to here?

How much is it gonna cost to bring in sewer?

And those little details or the views that matter, so make sure if you’re gonna hire a realtor, you better talk to the right realtor who understands property and understands new builds and understands all those things, because if not, it’ll be a disaster.

I have a friend who bought a two-acre lot out in my area where I live, and they didn’t do their due diligence, didn’t have a realtor who understood, they started getting ready to plan to build their house, and they found out, oh my gosh, it’s gonna cost me $280,000 to bring sewer to my one lot.

Yeah.

And there’s no way around it.

And that’s the thing, is a lot of times, if you get an unexperienced realtor, you’re just targeting, hey, what’s the most dirt for the least amount of money?

And that’s not gonna be the cheapest lot.

That’s not the best deal, because like you said, what’s it gonna take to get that piece of dirt to where you could actually build on it?

It could be several hundred thousand dollars to get it to where you can do that.

He’s stuck, and guess what?

He’s selling it now.

And he’s gonna hope that there’s another sucker out there that’s gonna buy the house, or the lot, just like he did, that didn’t do their due diligence, because if they do, he can’t sell the lot for what he bought it for.

In addition to that, understanding well and water rights.

Like, that’s all implemented when you’re doing custom lots.

You understand what you’re allowed to do with a well, what you’re not allowed to do with a well.

And you can’t just assume that you get a vacant piece of dirt, there’s no water.

You can’t assume that you can just dig a well.

Yeah, and with our experience, we’ve had, we own properties currently with wells, and so it’s nice to know that we have that knowledge.

So you buy a piece of property, and you get a good piece, let’s say you get a good lot.

The next step is that soft cost, which we talked about.

It’s so important to have.

The most important part of all of new build is having a solid, detailed plan.

If you don’t have a solid, detailed plan, you will not have a solid, detailed bid.

And we talked about that before.

There’s so many competitors that we have in this industry that are so busy that they’ll give you a quick ballpark, and they won’t hear from you again.

Well, I’m gonna go with this guy, because he’s a lot more affordable.

And you end up spending the same amount of money, if not more, but you take twice as long, and there’s 1,000 change orders, and you have a terrible experience.

And it frustrates us a lot of times, because it’s smoke and mirrors.

We can play the same game, and land lots of jobs, and to tell people what they want to hear, and then change order them after they’re filled, and we just don’t want our customers to have that experience.

Yeah, even on the remodel side, we get clients all the time, and they’re like, well, this guy’s 1.1, and you guys are 1.4.

Let’s say they do end up going with the lower cost guy.

They end up spending 1.4 anyway, because the other guy gave them such a sloppy bid.

You have to understand, as a consumer, there is a difference between bids and qualified bids.

Somebody who’s taken the time, sharpened their pencil, and made those minute realizations of, okay, here’s the material, here’s the quantities, here’s how we’re gonna do the finishes.

All of that stuff matters, and so many people, like you said, are just gonna throw out a number.

And if it’s not a qualified bid, that’s gonna come back to bite you.

I think what happens a lot of times is people think, it feels like sometimes they treat this industry, and it is a lot like this, like a car dealership.

Kingdom & Co.’s markups are the same every time.

It’s the costs, the overhead, and a 10% markup.

And guess what, we’ll mess up about two or 3%, so we end up making about 7% on the job.

That’s what it comes down to, and at the end of the day, if people can feel that, understand that, then it’s not a game of, well, I’m not gonna show you my numbers.

You told me, it’s like, no, what do you want?

Let us help you, let us get you your dream home, and we’ll do it at the same cost, whether it be here or here.

If your budget’s here, we’ll get you there.

But we have the best tools and the best team to get you that dream remodel, that dream new build, because if we’re playing the game of, well, I only have a $100,000 budget, and then we end up doing it for, and then the real budget’s $300,000, and then we’re gonna design something around a $100,000 budget, and they’re not gonna be happy with the design.

So it’s like, don’t play the game.

Our numbers are the same, and that’s what happens when you’re an established, strong company.

We don’t have to play the game.

So another thing I would advise people when they’re going through this process is actually figure out what you want.

You know, it’s so surprising people will start this path, and they’ll even sit down with a designer, sit down with a planner, and they get it back, and they think, oh, this is great.

And then they keep wanting to change things.

They keep wanting to change their mind.

Changing your mind in a new build construction process is really expensive.

And I know that from experience.

I know the customer that I am.

I change order a lot because, for me, I’m always second-guessing things, right?

And so I am my worst nightmare.

And because of that, it costs me more money.

A good example is my own house.

I had this gym.

I wanted it bigger, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted it bigger.

I didn’t want to spend the money to do it.

And then I walk into the gym, and I’m like, it’s too small.

And I’m like, I’m going to change it.

And it’s like, well, this is gonna be a $50,000 change order.

And I’m like, okay.

And it would’ve taken literally a five-minute process for my art designer to bump it out and get it done the right way and just do it.

So being decisive, understanding what you want.

But that also is why it’s so powerful with Kingdom & Co.

Because we have the headset now, which I wish that we had.

Yeah, the virtual reality.

That wasn’t even around.

If I had the virtual reality in my gym, I would’ve known right away it was too small.

And I’d be like, bump out the wall.

And so that virtual reality experience is so powerful with Austin.

It’s just been an amazing experience for our clients because our clients walked in, and they’re like, wow, this is amazing.

The hallway’s a little bit too small and we’re too narrow.

Can we bump it out a couple feet?

Yeah, boom.

Oh, that looks way better.

The ceilings feel a little low here.

Can we go bump up to 10 feet instead of nine feet?

Yeah, and all of a sudden, they’re seeing it before it’s being built and feeling it.

Or like, this room’s massive.

I don’t need this much space.

Pull it in.

Exactly.

Those are great, too.

Being able to not overbuild.

I know so many people think they need more than they actually do.

When you actually consider what you’re gonna be using that space for, a lot of times it’s less than what you think.

Having that experience where you spend the energy, the effort, and spend the money on the design process and the building process becomes so much more simplistic.

And it’s a lot easier.

So with Kingdom and Co., that’s what we do.

We spend a lot of time in design.

Some people are like, well, that seems a little long.

It’s like, well, because we’re getting every little detail.

We wanna know how thick are the countertop edges?

What kind of edges are we putting in there?

What kind of hardware are we putting here?

Get down to those little nitty gritty details, but those details actually matter because that’s important.

Random thought here.

I was also thinking, one of the things that amazes me when people go through this design process is how much time, energy, and effort, and money they will put into designing around guests.

Yes.

That will very rarely be coming.

It just blows my mind how, and really, it obviously is related to how we want to be perceived around other people, but gosh, is it really worth spending the extra thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands sometimes just to build around guests that you might have in your house twice a year?

Some of our clients are very like, they’re so worried about what other people are gonna think about the design that they’re doing.

They’re like, what do you like?

Exactly, you gotta get in tune with that because designing around what you think other people are gonna like is just gonna, you’re the one living in it.

Yeah, I mean, what do you like?

Because of course, value matters, and we’ll obviously guide you towards, hey, if you want to make sure this stays value-wise, we’re gonna make sure the layouts are right, the bones are right.

Make sure that those are gonna be long-lasting things, but if you want to add a bright color to something because you like it, but you’re scared of, what’s everybody else gonna think of?

Add the bright color, or add the risky tile, whatever it may be, but don’t design your house and your life around other people.

I would encourage people, go to home shows.

Utah has the Parade of Homes, and get a sense of what you actually like, and there’s a lot of things out there that look cool that really would be annoying to actually live with.

It’d be fun to visit, but are you actually gonna wanna live with that scenario day-to-day?

Figure that stuff out, because it’s so much more cost-effective, or so much more expensive to try to change your mind later and shift those goalposts.

Changing costs a lot of money.

So just a real simple recap.

It’s the importance of buying the lot and having the right realtor is so important, and then the importance of design and taking your time to get everything dialed in, and don’t cheap out on it, because it costs you way more money in the long run, I promise you, and then at the end of the day, you gotta hire a contractor that understands quality, understands management.

And has a good process of building.

Like, for example, one of the things we have is we have a back office for our customers where they can log in and see the progress, and they understand what stage that build is in.

Throughout the property, once we start, everything’s QR-coded.

So every trade that comes in and is gonna be working on that, there’s no excuse for them not to have the most updated plans.

And there’s been instances where we’ve had a trade come in, they, for example, put in a tile that was on a set of plans three plans ago.

And it’s like, no, dude, your QR code’s right here, and it’s on you, you’ve gotta replace it.

That sense of, we’re making sure our team is held accountable.

And so having those most updated plans, as things do move and change, and making sure everybody’s operating and rowing in the same direction.

Yeah.

That’s a huge difference.

I think it’s important.