What are the advantages of working with a small home builder?

When building a house, the advantages for large builders are well documented. Great builders have “deep pockets.” They can exploit economies of scale, taking advantage of this to influence the supply chain and, as a result, obtain discounts on materials (ideally, pass these savings on to the buyer).

But to acknowledge these facts without pointing out the advantages of working with small builders, also known as custom home builders, is to give them little attention. There are several very good reasons to have your home built by a custom builder rather than a volume builder. Five of the largest are described below.

1. Custom Home Builders Can Build Your New Home Wherever You Want It

Custom builders generally work on only one project at a time. As a result, they aren’t afraid to look into options like urban infill lots, allowing you more choice about where you want to build.

By contrast, great builders think big. This means that they are not thinking in terms of houses, but in terms of developments. To build a development, large developers must locate and acquire large tracts of land. Your home location is restricted to these. These flyers are rarely available near urban centers, which means that if you don’t want a long drive, a big builder may not be your best option.

2. You are an individual and you would like your house to be too

As a general rule, you can expect almost complete customization from a small builder. For starters, a custom builder is working with a greater variety of design options, often built in a single batch. This allows you to select most of the details of your new home. Also, by definition, a small builder will have fewer employees, which means they will almost always be on site. You will have ample opportunities to change the things you don’t like. It is also very likely that your builder will accommodate you in such areas because it is likely that he lives in the area where he works and your professional reputation depends, in large part, on his satisfaction.

Volume builders build houses, usually many at a time, based on a more limited library of house plans. They will have purchased most of the materials and predetermined most of the design elements of their house well in advance. You can “customize” your home with your selections of appliances, countertops, etc., but builders have a very strict schedule and aren’t necessarily willing to make all the little changes you’d like to see. If you’re building in a niche location, perhaps on a hill or narrow lot, larger developers may not share your vision.

You may have purchased that property on a hill specifically for the purpose of putting your house on top of it, but your volume builder may not agree, preferring to dig into the hill and create a flat block on which to build one of your previously created designs.

3. Smaller builders may have more knowledge

It is more likely that a smaller local builder built on similar land. Having built in your area, a custom builder will be able to tell you with confidence that, for example, there are rocks close to the ground surface in your area, making digging impossible. This kind of prior knowledge can end up saving you money on site costs.

In some cases, volume builders will move across the state or even the country between projects, never learning the subtleties of the local landscape.

4. Custom builds are often of higher quality

One way the big builders keep their prices so low is by having parts of the houses built in a factory and then brought to the site, which negatively affects both the quality and the materials themselves.

Custom home builders are much less likely (or able) to engage in this practice, often resulting in a better-built home.

5. Smaller builders know how much house you need

A volume builder can probably build you a “McMansion” for a comparatively low price, but future heating, cooling and furnishing costs (not to mention the burden of cleaning it) are left to you. A builder who lives in your area will be more familiar with local energy costs and the like, and, again, will have a professional interest in your satisfaction.

To conclude, larger builders have the advantages of working quickly. They may offer larger homes for lower prices, but this comes at the cost of the individualization that probably led you to build, rather than buy, a home in the first place.

A custom builder may be the best way to ensure you’re buying your dream home, and not the developer’s.