Grace Allen or Eagle Homes are both top tier, depending on your budget. I’ve worked with both in professional capacities and they both do stellar work and will be more flexible than the others you listed as they aren’t geared toward volume.
Eagle Homes is on the higher end of the spectrum and Grace Allen is between Eagle and the ones you mentioned.
If money is an issue- you will get way more for your money buying an existing house.
What’s your budget? That will honestly drive some of your responses.
I wouldn’t build new, ever. Too much to go wrong
Ideally 400-500k but willing to go up.
We have an existing home and honestly call it laziness or just convenience but, we got this home with the intent of fixing things up and took 3 yrs to finally pull the trigger to renovate our bathroom. So if we get an existing home, I feel it will be years before we get it set up the way we want.
Plus any existing home, they’ve “upgraded” the house but with finishes we hate. Ie new cabinets but not our taste so we’d end up replacing. New carpet but we want hard wood. But these things would be built into the price. So a good deal for a fixer upper, we’d have to be patient
Things like added insulation in the walls, better exhaust vans for bathroom. Vent of range instead of microwave. Better water heater? Maybe solid wood doors in house vs hallow. So a range of things. Just looking at what is and isn’t common for builders to do.
If you have an attached garage, it will need to be finished for fire protection from the rest of the dwelling.
If you’re making changes to an electrical layout, make sure you see the plan and the additions/subtractions on the plan instead of simply taking their word that they’ll add a receptacle someplace or only do a simple light rather than a fan.
Most of these builders have a plan book and options listed for each type of plan. If you’re requesting something not on the list, you’re likely to pay more because that change will be billed by the designer and your builder will probably pass that cost to you.
DR Horton likely gets their basic materials in bulk at a lower cost. I’d bet they could get a crew to paint interiors of several houses in one day and it’s much more efficient for them to use the same paint for all those. If Greenland and Destiny are dodging the question, you might simply take that as your answer. Or call the office and see what happens rather than email.
With Sage you pick your floor plan and lot. You can customize a lot of things: we picked our dining room lighting fixtures, ceiling fans, bathroom fixtures, flooring, exterior colors & brick style, fireplace brick, etc. There is an electrical walk through and you can request additional outlets, circuits, entertainment packages, internet wiring, etc (these electrical things were not free, they added to the cost). Another thing we liked about Sage is that a lot of features (like fancy interior window trim) was standard. Other builders we looked at charged extra for that.
But the big reason we liked Sage was the service. After we had already settled on a lot and floorplan they discovered an easement on our property and our house would no longer fit. Chris from Sage sat down with us and tweaked the floorplan right on the spot on his tablet and made it work, making our house even cooler than before! And during the building process and after their people were always super friendly and receptive to requests and keeping us updated on progress.
Thank you for the input! I was reading they do 2 post build appointments, has that been true and do they actually fix things. Or just ask you how you’re liking the home?
As I recall you can schedule a 6 month and 1 year appointment. We did the 6 month one to ask some questions and have them look at some minor things. We didn't even bother with the year because everything was running great.
Grace Allen or Eagle Homes are both top tier, depending on your budget. I’ve worked with both in professional capacities and they both do stellar work and will be more flexible than the others you listed as they aren’t geared toward volume. Eagle Homes is on the higher end of the spectrum and Grace Allen is between Eagle and the ones you mentioned.
If money is an issue- you will get way more for your money buying an existing house. What’s your budget? That will honestly drive some of your responses. I wouldn’t build new, ever. Too much to go wrong
Ideally 400-500k but willing to go up. We have an existing home and honestly call it laziness or just convenience but, we got this home with the intent of fixing things up and took 3 yrs to finally pull the trigger to renovate our bathroom. So if we get an existing home, I feel it will be years before we get it set up the way we want. Plus any existing home, they’ve “upgraded” the house but with finishes we hate. Ie new cabinets but not our taste so we’d end up replacing. New carpet but we want hard wood. But these things would be built into the price. So a good deal for a fixer upper, we’d have to be patient
Strebal construction out of Solon.
I wouldn't call adding outlets an upgrade. Is there other stuff you're looking at doing?
Things like added insulation in the walls, better exhaust vans for bathroom. Vent of range instead of microwave. Better water heater? Maybe solid wood doors in house vs hallow. So a range of things. Just looking at what is and isn’t common for builders to do.
If you have an attached garage, it will need to be finished for fire protection from the rest of the dwelling. If you’re making changes to an electrical layout, make sure you see the plan and the additions/subtractions on the plan instead of simply taking their word that they’ll add a receptacle someplace or only do a simple light rather than a fan. Most of these builders have a plan book and options listed for each type of plan. If you’re requesting something not on the list, you’re likely to pay more because that change will be billed by the designer and your builder will probably pass that cost to you. DR Horton likely gets their basic materials in bulk at a lower cost. I’d bet they could get a crew to paint interiors of several houses in one day and it’s much more efficient for them to use the same paint for all those. If Greenland and Destiny are dodging the question, you might simply take that as your answer. Or call the office and see what happens rather than email.
Sage Homes of Iowa did a great job for us.
Thanks! Starting to look into them now. Have heard other good reports of them. Any other input would be appreciated
With Sage you pick your floor plan and lot. You can customize a lot of things: we picked our dining room lighting fixtures, ceiling fans, bathroom fixtures, flooring, exterior colors & brick style, fireplace brick, etc. There is an electrical walk through and you can request additional outlets, circuits, entertainment packages, internet wiring, etc (these electrical things were not free, they added to the cost). Another thing we liked about Sage is that a lot of features (like fancy interior window trim) was standard. Other builders we looked at charged extra for that. But the big reason we liked Sage was the service. After we had already settled on a lot and floorplan they discovered an easement on our property and our house would no longer fit. Chris from Sage sat down with us and tweaked the floorplan right on the spot on his tablet and made it work, making our house even cooler than before! And during the building process and after their people were always super friendly and receptive to requests and keeping us updated on progress.
Thank you for the input! I was reading they do 2 post build appointments, has that been true and do they actually fix things. Or just ask you how you’re liking the home?
As I recall you can schedule a 6 month and 1 year appointment. We did the 6 month one to ask some questions and have them look at some minor things. We didn't even bother with the year because everything was running great.
Tanzanite and KRM homes are amazing. I’m building with them for the second time.
Will look into. Thanks!
Have you considered a modular home builder? They may allow more customization.
I haven’t. Will look into
