Residential Q & A
Q: What is the difference between a typical home quote done by other builders and your process?
A: Standard practice is to simply review a client’s blueprint and then create a budget with allowances in areas like flooring and cabinets. This price typically looks great, so the client takes the contract to their bank for financing and construction can begin. Clients then go and pick out their own selections and often find out that the allowance amounts do not cover the materials they wanted. That is why the price initially looked so great; the budget did not reflect what they truly desired in their home. Now, they must either settle for cheaper finishes and less detail or pay out of pocket to upgrade as their financing was based on the initial amount in the budget, not the actual final cost.
A Blackrock quote is much different from typical builders’ quotes. We will provide an initial estimate, but only for the purpose of designing the blueprint. We then design the print and specifications around your budget. Once the print is completed, the client works with our designers to pick out everything from the cabinets to the lighting. We use these numbers to create your budget so your allowances are a clear reflection of what you truly want in your home. This process often takes longer on the front end as it requires more planning. However, it also reduces unforeseen cost surprises once we move to the construction phase. It is not uncommon for people to work through this process and ultimately determine that they must make changes to their plan to stay on budget. By doing this work prior to beginning construction, they have that option available to them instead of having to make sacrifices halfway through construction.
Q: What does a custom home cost per sqft?
A: We get asked this all the time and there isn’t a clear answer. It’s a bit like pricing a car by the pound; a Kia is going to be cheaper than a Ferrari, right? Here is some general information to help get a sense of sqft price ranges:
We’ve built homes in the past from $185/sqft (not recently) up to $700/sqft. The determining factor is what our clients want to put into their home. Not all square footage is equal from a cost perspective. For example, if you select a sqft sample in the middle of an unfinished utility room you might be at a $100/sqft cost. However, if you choose a sqft sample in a kitchen you might be at $1200/sqft, as there are cabinets, a sink and maybe an expensive faucet or fixtures needed. As a home increases in size, we often see the square footage price decrease as the more expensive rooms like kitchens and bathrooms are blended down into the less expensive spaces such as wider hallways and open living areas.
Your costs come from three main areas:
o the overall size of the home and garage.
o the cost tier of the finishes.
o the level of detail desired.
To illustrate, you can have a very small home built with the most expensive interior and exterior finishes, with a high level of detail. This would lead to a very high cost per/sqft.
All the above being said, we find that most of our clients choose to start their budgets around the $320/sqft range and go up from there, with the $350-450/sqft range representing the majority of builds. That price excludes land, utilities and GST.
Q: What is the starting point budget you build at?
A: This is always a tough question as there are lots of different factors involved. We find our custom building process starts to become feasible around the $750,000 mark, excluding land and utilities. Anything under that price point, and it makes more financial sense to hire a spec builder and change a few finishes and colours because of the time involved in the planning and design of a true custom home.
Q: Is it true that different home styles typically fall into different cost categories?
A: Absolutely. It all comes down to the size of the home’s footprint. A Two Storey is going to have the smallest footprint, so they will typically be the cheapest. The Modified Bi-Level is next, followed by the Bungalow and then the Rancher style having the highest cost.
Q: How does the financing work on a custom home?
A: Typically, we will help clients find a bank representative or broker who specializes in draw mortgages. A client will pay their down-payment either to us or will use their downpayment towards their land purchase. The bank then forwards payments (draws) to us at prescribed stage of progress throughout the build. For clients that are not using a draw mortgage, we invoice monthly.
Q: I have not been able to find a home already built on the market that I like. Will you be able to build us a custom home for a similar price to what’s available publically?
A: In our experience, a custom home will always be a bit more expensive than a home already on the market. If the comparison is a home built some time ago, we have likely had code changes as well as material and labour cost increases. If the comparison is a new spec home on the market, we will be closer, but still more expensive as the cost to custom build a plan once is more than building the same spec plan 30 times in a row. It involves far more planing, coordination, and the client’s expectations are often far higher. The cheapest option is to always find something already on the market.
Q: How long does it take to build a custom home?
A: This all depends on the location and plan. Our builds typically range from eight months to a year from the time we start the homes foundation.
Q: How far out of town do you build?
A: For custom homes we try to stay within 45 minutes of Grande Prairie. For larger custom homes and commercial projects, we look at them on a project by project basis.
Q: Will you also build my acreage shop?
A: Yes. We build pole, stick frame and ICF shops often for our clients at the same time as their home.
Q: When is the best time of the year to build?
A: That is determined on whether your builder has the right equipment and the availability of utilities onsite. The introduction of remote boiler systems has taken a lot of the challenges out of winter builds. Trades are more available in the winter typically.
Q: How do we pick out everything from colours to cabinets?
A: We have in-house designers available who can do as little or as much as you need. Some clients have them just put packages together for them to choose from, while others have the designers accompany them to every supplier to pick out every detail. This is a unique service we offer only to clients that build with us, however we do not offer this service to private or self builds.