LandSmith Construction

120 Seale Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94301
Phone: (650) 328-4663
Fax: (650) 328-1833

info@landsmith.net

Your LandSmith Construction Experience

by LandSmith Construction

Construction Time

Building your dream home can take eight to ten months for the complete process depending on many variables – floor plan, location, time of year, permitting County.

LandSmith provides you with complete design build services that greatly facilitate and streamline your project. The actual construction time from ground break to completion is approximately six months.

Inspections

Once you have complete plans, specifications and permits, once construction is under way the following inspections will be made by both your lender for release of funds and the County:

Foundation Complete
Exterior Walls Complete
Roof Framing Complete
All framing, plumbing, electrical, HVAC, insulation, etc. is complete prior to sheetrock installation.
Sheetrock Installation Complete
Cabinets, trim, driveway, and finish complete.
Final Inspection is made when the home is complete.

Your final walkthrough happens at this point and a punch list of corrections is made. LandSmith will then conduct quality audits of your new home every ninety days for the first year after completion.

Cost

After all construction costs, the gross profit of your builder is where all overhead and operation costs are covered. Any inflation during the construction of your home is also born by the builder’s gross profit.

All builders face the same basic costs of construction and pricing, so in reality, any cost difference in bids is due to the builder providing a lower quality service and product than another.

All things being equal three different builders would therefore have identical bids. The problem is, you can never get identical bids because each builder has different classes of materials and uses various sub-contractors of differing quality levels.

The reality is this, you will never be able to truly compare one builder to another in an apples to apples comparison. There are so many real and intangible factors that the bottom line is that you must choose a builder you can trust, has a solid track record, whose work you have seen and who will support you with outstanding service.

Then, agree upon your very clearly specified dream home project, with the quality level clearly defined, and your dream home will be created at the agreed upon cost.

Cost Per Square Foot

As in overall cost, your cost per square foot is affected by many, many variables. LandSmith builds a certain level of executive home with associated finish and costs. You will know that all of these superior advantages are included in the cost per square foot quote we give you.

Some builders use a loss-leader type of ridiculously low cost per square foot to get you in the door, and then by the time you get started you come to realize that the home you want is going to cost substantially more per foot. This puts you right back into the LandSmith market and you will wish you had known this before you made your builder decision.

One constant is economies of scale. The larger the home, the lower the cost per foot because a small home shares most of the same requirements as the larger home. Those shared costs are distributed over more square footage in a larger home, thus reducing the cost per foot. You can therefore add more square footage, at a reasonable cost, in many areas of your new home. Your cost to add the extra footage will be much lower than the appraised value of the footage making a profitable situation. Ask us how.

Financing

There are two ways you can finance your dream home after you’ve selected your builder, designed you home and nailed down the cost.

The first is when your builder buys the property and finances the construction of your home themselves. When your home is completed you close the escrow. As your builder is taking all the risk in this type of financing situation you will make a deposit to your builder to offset that risk.

The second way is when you purchase the property and obtain a construction loan. Your builder then builds on your lot the funds being released by your lender directly to your builder at various stages of the construction process. The final draw must be approved by you prior to release to your builder.

This method of financing eliminates a second closing and lowers the cost of your home because you will be able to deduct the interest on you loan during construction. These interest costs otherwise would be borne by your builder and passed along to you through the cost of you home and would not be deductible to you.

Call, write, fax or email us:

LandSmith Construction

(650) 328-4663
(650) 328-1833 fax
Construction@LandSmith.net