Clients deserve a straight answer, but getting it requires an honest conversation. Tract builders and realtors often market homes in terms of square-foot costs, but that approach can be misleading for a custom home. Learn how much your blog should cost in this blog post!

The 2007 housing market crash was an event of Darwinian proportions. It was Survival of the Fittest on Steroids, as demand for new homes sank to Great Depression levels and countless builders vanished. The exact number of failed builders varied by region but reached heights of near 90 percent in the hardest hit areas.

The best builders approach it systematically. What separates great builders from good ones? A lot of things do, but part of the answer is that great builders are obsessive about small details. And taken together, those small details leave a big impression.

Not sure what it an escalation clause is? Then, read on for this quick building success post on escalation clauses.

Quality homes and happy customers don't happen by accident. The best builders have systems to ensure those outcomes. If you have a complete set of construction documents, including accurate blueprints and product descriptions, then material and labor costs won't vary much between equivalent professional builders. Learn about which builder systems you need to be aware of for building success!

If you are in the process of building a new home then you’ve probably felt the natural fluctuation of the building process. Learn what tempo of progress you should expect and appreciate while building your new home by using an established professional home builder during your new home construction process.

Not sure how to use online contractor reviews? Trust? Maybe. Verify? Definitely.

A September 2011 Business Week article reported on a Texas home improvement contractor that hired a writer to post 200 positive reviews on sites like Yelp and Google. The story went on to cite other examples and estimated the percentage of fake online reviews at close to 30 percent.

Outdoor lighting is a real art, and the best result comes from planning ahead.

A beautiful custom home represents a huge investment of time, care and money. Someone who has decided to make that investment most likely wants the home to present its best face to the world. During the day, that face is the architecture and landscaping, but after dark, it's largely determined by the outdoor lighting.

Intelligent universal design fades into the background and makes everyone happier!

Today's biggest demographic trend poses a challenge and also presents an opportunity. That's because more and more working-age people are asking for a home with space to accommodate senior parents with age-related mobility or physiological issues.

The challenge is that they don't want the senior suite to look like an assisted living residence; the opportunity is that, done right, it can end up as one of the home's most appealing spaces.

The best builders are engineering their homes for health and comfort. Efficiency, health and comfort—a great new home delivers all of those. But creating that home using today's construction methods takes more knowledge than most people realize. That knowledge is one of the benefits of working with a professional builder.

We find that most homeowners like to take plenty of time researching their kitchen appliances. And, many of them also want some advice when making the final choices.