Constructive Conversations

Episode 3: Designer First or Builder First?

• Victorian Finance • Season 1 • Episode 3

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Should you hire a designer first or a builder first when constructing your dream home? The real answer might surprise you—it's both, working together from day one. This nuanced discussion explores why establishing an integrated team early saves time, prevents costly mistakes, and ensures your vision aligns with your budget.

We dive deep into the two primary approaches to home construction: the traditional design-bid-build method for custom homes versus planned unit developments with their design-build systems. Each path offers distinct advantages and limitations. Planned developments provide speed, cost efficiency, and simplified decision-making, making them perfect for those who get overwhelmed by endless choices. Custom homes, though more variable in cost, deliver spaces tailored specifically to your lifestyle—designed around how you cook, relax, entertain, and live.

The conversation reveals why communication is the cornerstone of successful building projects. We share a cautionary tale of a client who spent $30,000 on house plans because the builder wasn't involved early enough, forcing multiple redesigns when bids exceeded budget. Working in parallel rather than in series makes all the difference, with all team members collaborating throughout the process rather than working in isolation.

Modern technology has revolutionized home design, with 3D modeling allowing clients to virtually walk through their future homes before construction begins. This visualization process eliminates approximately 70-80% of potential field changes, helping you see and approve layouts and finishes while avoiding costly change orders. Understanding the different roles in the building process—from designers to architects to draftsmen—ensures you assemble the right team for your specific project needs.

Speaker 1:

Hey everybody, welcome back to Constructive Conversations. My name is Zach Daniel with Victorian Finance, and I'm Luke Barksdale with Vis3Dspace. So today we're going to talk about one of the most important early decisions to make. Do you bring in a designer first or do you hire your builder first? So you know, what do you think on that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, man. So it's a good question. My personal opinion is that you bring in a designer first. A lot of times your designer is going to have good relationships with your builder. Now I do have it the other way, where somebody goes and finds a builder and then that builder actually ends up referring them over to us. So you see it both ways. The important part is they're both brought in together.

Speaker 1:

So I would think just from my own perspective and what I would think. But I you know, I don't know this from experience or anything, but if somebody was to go find a builder first and they are to refer you, I would imagine that builder is not quoting anything out until they've talked to you.

Speaker 1:

So no you know, it would be no different than if someone goes and finds a realtor that they want to work with and the realtor is referring them over to me. The realtor isn't doing any work to take them out, visit homes, you know, before they get pre-approved. Essentially, what that builder is looking for is a budget to set and plans to work with. So they're they know what. To actually quote the buyers that's right.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes builders may get a little bit more involved. If you've got like some lot, they may go out and see just how extensive maybe lot prep would be for a house, or if they could go ahead and recommend you, you know, do a slab or do a crawl space and then talk just rough numbers with you. But as far as like accurate planning, until you have a plan you can't plan yeah no, that that makes total sense.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so some of the things that I really want to talk about today were just the different approaches in building a home. You know, the traditional focus of design bid build or versus the more planned unit development under a builder, which is, you know, design, build within the same integrated system yeah.

Speaker 2:

So when you're talking custom homes, you're really looking at the design, bid, build approach. Okay, so you're gonna, you know, get your team is what keep talking about set up. And so your designer and your builder they need to be on the same page with each other kind of from the get-go and be willing to collaborate a little bit. You won't? You want those to work together and then that'll work in getting you a design done. Once that design is done if they've been talking, it's been done with respect to your budget, and then the builder can do a full-blown takeoff at that point. And once they've done the take off, if that's approved, it goes to the lender to get approved and then gets built.

Speaker 2:

If it's not approved, it goes back to the design and then you're looking at maybe shuffling some square footage, maybe losing some. In some cases we've seen it expand. We've had people come by and go, hey, it came in under what we thought it was going to be. I'd like to add a game room or maybe, you know, open up that attic space to be a bonus or something that's nice.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, coming in under budget is always nice. Those are my favorite clients, yeah, and so you know what would be the other approach with the planned unit development. How does that work?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so a lot of these planned unit development guys. They control a lot of their costs and so they have a lot of known costs. So what they'll do is they'll get a set of plans designed some of them in-house and some of them out and then, once they get them designed, they do their own bid and that's ready before they launch marketing for their development. And so when you're going in there, you're going I want that plant on that lot. They have a known cost. They'll give you an array of selections within each house. Yeah, but you pretty much know what that's going to be and you can kind of lock that up. Now they'll do change orders if you decide to change anything down the way it's usually not anything, nothing crazy Cosmetic stuff.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, cosmetic. A lot of them are not gonna let you move stuff structurally, so that's just design, build because they've already done the bid and so you're coming in and going okay, design maybe is not layout, but maybe like cabinets and finishes and things like that, right, yeah?

Speaker 1:

right, yeah, no, that makes sense. I mean, what would you think would be the pros and cons of each of those?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so we'll talk about you know the planned unit developments first. So pros are going to be. There's probably going to be some speed involved. These guys are building these houses on repeat so they can get them up pretty quick. There's not a lot for you to choose from. So if you're somebody that gets overwhelmed by a lot of decisions and that stresses you out, plan unit development is a pro. And then again just cost control. Typically per square foot is a little bit cheaper on a plan unit development because they've got their own crews, they're building houses on repeat and a lot of times they've bulk deals right on some of their materials.

Speaker 1:

Their materials is gonna be cheaper, that's right. Yeah, you know, I guess.

Speaker 2:

What about, I guess, the more traditional custom home, yeah, so custom home, the most variable cost, obviously, and that's really just depending on what you want and so, and that's pulling those ideas out of your head. So you know, as a designer, our process. It looks like they sit down with us. We kind of say, hey, give us the pinterest board, give us the hopes and dreams binder man, and I've had people come in with a notebook like that and I've had people come in and send us a google link. You know that would uh, the notebook would definitely definitely oh man what?

Speaker 2:

uh, you know, my wife would do how the lady would like 20 years of clippings that she brought in to do a full custom design so yeah the.

Speaker 2:

The cost varies quite a bit, but the pros of doing a custom home is that you're gonna be able to get what you want in a house. So you're gonna be able to design it to how you live, right? Do you cook a lot? Your kitchen needs to function well, you know. Is the bathroom like do you have like that spa type thing? Do you like soaking in a tub? The bedroom like do you want a bigger bedroom with some sitting space? Maybe you got kids and you want like a reading nook in there so you kind of get away for a minute. You know it's really formed for you at that point. So a lot of the pros of custom home building is you can make the house that fits you. And then I guess the cons would be a little bit harder to control the cost, unless your builder is very good at planning. So that's one of the things to take into account when you're finding a builder.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I would say that because I ran into the question. All the time people call me about financing. They want to build a house, right? Yeah, one of the three questions I get asked is well, do I need a GC or can I build the house myself? Right, you know, I think you just know it right on the head there. Like a GC, you know, yeah, they have a fee that they're going to associate in order to kind of run the project. But that takes the stress off you because they're handling all the contractors, the subs, but they're also going to be able to control those costs for you a little bit better.

Speaker 2:

That's right. Control those costs for you a little bit better. That's right. As far as the GC, do you GC yourself? Do you hire somebody? Kind of debate. My recommendation is to hire a GC, mainly for the stress point that you're talking about. It's a full-time job. For a GC, for a reason it's very much a full-time job. And so building your own home it's not that it's not doable Plenty of people do it not doable. Plenty of people do it, plenty of people do it well. But it's a personality type. It's a. It's a person that knows how to look for quality yeah yeah, so that's just something to consider.

Speaker 2:

You can save some cost there, but it's still variable cost, right? You you're hiring subs that are not working for you personally, so they're it's a bid that they've given you. There are change orders that might come up, so planning is of the utmost importance. On a custom home.

Speaker 1:

I've heard real-life scenarios where people opted out of using a GC and they've had subcontractors not put them top priority.

Speaker 2:

That's right.

Speaker 1:

You know, if you hire a GC, they have subcontractors that are used to working with them. It's all relationships, man.

Speaker 2:

They probably do multiple jobs with them. It's all relationships. If you're a GC and that's your job, you spent time A vetting your subs. You've worked with them on multiple jobs. Like you know what their quality is. You've worked with them on multiple jobs. You know what their quality is. If you're hiring them for the first time, it's a roll of the dice. You're trusting somebody else's word, maybe a job or two that you saw, but it's really just rolling the dice on, hoping they're going to be the quality that you want. If you've built those relationships, you kind of know yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Well, I guess what would be the con to a plan unit development.

Speaker 2:

So I guess the con to a plan unit development is you have limited options. You don't get to just put that on your own land, yeah Right. So you can't just go buy 30 acres to build it on. You're going to build it where they're at, so you've got to be okay with subdivisions, which may be a pro, maybe a con for you. For me, I like living in the country, so it would be a con for me, but I know I've got some family that loves living in neighborhoods and so it's a pro for them. Yeah, I would say that you don't have as many choices as far as the plans and stuff. The plans are not formed fit for you as a customer. It's like buying a suit versus a tailored suit, right? Yeah, one of them is tailored exactly to you, where you look great in it all the time, and the other one is a generic suit made for anybody that puts it on with that general size. That's, you know, plain new development. It's not that it's bad, it's just not formed to fit, correct.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that makes sense. So I mean I guess another thing would be just the importance of building that team and keeping open communication, like we've talked about on multiple episodes now, and just really always maintain that line of communication with everybody yeah, absolutely so.

Speaker 2:

Some of the most important things in your build are going to be you being open and honest with your builder and your designer, your builder and your designer maintaining a completely open line of communication and being willing to work with one another. Um, we've got builders that we partner with roughly about 24 25 of them in the huntsville, madison, guntersville arab areas um, and the Huntsville, madison, guntersville ARAB areas, and the big thing is the ones that are the most successful, that are like the top builders. They're the ones that I can call up and say, hey, so-and-so is building this house, they're wanting to do a staircase this way. Let me send you some screenshots. What do you think? Right, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And they'll go hey, listen, that's great, but that requires this system right, or Elevators have become a real big thing. Hey, I want to put an elevator in. How we're gonna do that? What elevator we're gonna use being able to talk through that? Because it may require a mechanic room, it may not. You know, having those open lines of communication to be able to pivot quickly with your builder and designer team, that's pretty key. Yeah, pivot quickly with your builder and designer team. That's pretty key.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think that's great information. I mean just always having just that strong team up front and knowing who to contact first in the process. I mean, I would think, just based off this conversation, really regardless if you call it builder first or designer first, like you need to introduce them immediately. Yeah, it's almost a trick question. It's like who?

Speaker 2:

to hire first Both. Yeah, get them both Like you know you can be introduced to one through the other, but really making sure they're working from the get-go as a team with your budget in mind, is gold.

Speaker 1:

So you know, for anyone who hasn't built a home, or even if they have, they're looking to build another one like a question that I have run into and honestly I had this same question when I built my home, like when is it okay to call the builder?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So my recommendation I guess it's always okay to call the builder. Yeah, so my recommendation I guess it's okay, it's always okay to call the builder. So, yeah, first. First of all, broad statement it's always okay to call the builder. You're the client, your money's on the line, it is going to be your home. It's always okay.

Speaker 2:

But best ways to facilitate that talk with your builder up front. Like, hey, I want to know at these intervals, I'd like to do budget reviews. I'd like to talk about this because your builder wants to know stuff up front. They don't want you to come to them after cabinets have been put in and go well, can I have a lazy susan in that corner? The time is way past for that at that point. So they want to know information early. So any changes, anything you you want, don't think that they know what you're thinking, right. So really just be open and up front with them.

Speaker 2:

But but kind of, maybe develop a plan for some check-ins along the way. Maybe, uh, they meet you on site. Uh, you brother-in-law, he's got a construction company and the way we kind of do it is hey, we're going to do maybe some budget checks along the way and we'll talk about the interval with the client, because their schedules may allow for something different, and then maybe some on-site checks at certain points, where we meet you out there and we walk through it. Is there anything you're dissatisfied with? Are you happy with how everything's going?

Speaker 1:

So would you think you know me doing construction financing. You know how a construction loan typically works, is draws are taken off a line of credit to help fund the project. Would you think setting up those meetings with the builder for check-ins kind of at the time of a draw is a smart idea? Or should that be a conversation had before then?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I guess really. Either way, it definitely can hurt. The conversations about money are always best had in person. Yeah, face to face, so that's probably not a bad recommendation is to have you know your draw meetings. I guess it would vary, though, just on how much you want to talk to them, because I know some draws, like some people make you do like maybe six draws and then some people let you have unlimited draws, and so you may meet a little sooner more, or you may meet less um but, yeah, talking to them at those points.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I like talking about money face to face. That way, if they do have a question, we can address it right then. No, yeah that's.

Speaker 1:

That's always key. I mean, when you're talking about other people's money, yeah, especially on a construction loan, I mean, ultimately, the the buyers are paying for that is their money. So, absolutely, if there's any issues that come up, is best to take care of them at that point in time. So, um, you know, do you have any examples or anything that you may want to talk about? As far as somebody who may come to you with a design solution, you know they may have a budget in mind, or they may come to you with a recommendation to a builder and then it does not pan out yeah.

Speaker 2:

So I guess some just examples we've had in the past, you know, when the builder and the designer weren't working together. So we work with some people before that the builders like, hey, give me the plans when I'm hey, give me the plans. When I've got the plans, then I'll step in and I'll worry about it. And again, that's some old school stuff. That's the way people have done it a long time. It's not that it's wrong, it's just it's not the most efficient. And an example of that is I had a gentleman come to us.

Speaker 2:

He told us what his budget was. We designed a set of plans he was very happy with. He went off and got it bid. He came back dissatisfied with the bid. He did a new set of plans and he went off and got it bid and, as far as we know, the budget was fine. The builder didn't have a problem with it. Came back, there was some things with the setbacks and the budget the second time, and so they came back again and said hey, we've actually done some fact-finding, this is what we need to do. Got a third set of plans. This gentleman ended up spending like $30,000 in house plans. Wow, simply because the builder just didn't want to spend the time to come, sit down in the office to talk about it and work through some solutions together.

Speaker 1:

So was it the builder that wasn't willing to, or did he not introduce you to the builder?

Speaker 2:

Well, I'd say, that that's a builder not willing to is probably too strong. It's not that they weren't willing to. It's that there was never a good open line of communication of, hey, we need information, do you have? Well, I'm going to wait on you to get me the plans. If we're working together, we can address these things quickly and along the process, rather than waiting till one piece is done and then the next piece needs to get done. It's like working serial versus working parallel. If you want to work parallel, that's going to be like the best, most integrated system. Working in serial, I may get step one done, but step two I may have to redo step one to get to step three and so it becomes a lot.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, that's just cost, I mean $30,000 for plans.

Speaker 1:

It was a lot, man it was a lot.

Speaker 2:

Man, it was a lot, but it was like one of those things that the client was happy, right, and we went all the way through done construction plans. As far as we knew, that house was getting built A few months later. Hey, gotten some quotes, got my quote from my builder going to redo it twice. It was a large home too, Don't mind you. It was like 10,000 square feet. Yeah, yeah, I could imagine. But still.

Speaker 1:

I mean that just goes to show you, having that open line of communication up front could have saved this guy $20,000.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, man, and there's some I I guess some misconceptions out there too. You know builders are pretty well defined. You go find a custom home builder. You know what they're capable of. They're. They're going to build a custom home. When you're talking about designer, it's pretty broad term. So, like we specifically are not architects, we are designers. So just side note for residential, you do not have to have an architect stamp your drawings. You can use a draftsman, you can use a designer to get your plans done. Yeah, for commercial, always have to have an architect involved, just some kind of black and white rules there. So when you're doing home design, architects still do residential, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Then you got guys like us who are kind of in between an architect and just a standard draftsman. And then you got draftsmen. So draftsmen are going to do like 2D, maybe some basic elevations, real, just rough and ready. Get it out there and they'll build it and you can build houses off of those all day long. Then you got guys like us that are a little bit more of a refined set of drawings. It's got 3D model with it. You're going to walk through it, approve stuff on the fly. And then you get architects that are kind of above that, that are they're going to go in more detail but they also take on more liability. So when an architect stamps your drawings they're taking on the liability for the MEP package, which is like your mechanicals and stuff. When they stamp it they're typically walking that all the way through with the builder through the process. A lot more cost involved in that, but bigger projects may warrant it right no that that makes sense.

Speaker 1:

So you know, with you guys yeah the. You know I've seen your work, the, the 3d models. It's great. I mean just the design process that you have in the home. I, you know I really love what you guys do appreciate that. But the the terminology can differ wildly. I mean you call yourself a designer, but then the a designer could also be who sits there and picks the colors in your home or the curtains to hang up a hundred percent and even there's even nuance in that.

Speaker 2:

So we work with interior designers, right, so right. When we say designer, first thing everybody goes to is interior designer. We design custom homes all the way to the floor plan stage. We partner with interior designers.

Speaker 2:

But then there are varying degrees of that yeah we've got some people um, there's partners in huntsville specifically. It would be a bad idea to get one of them on here to talk to them about it but they'll do like a full package of, maybe exterior finishes. They'll help with all the selections and get the numbers for those products to help assemble the bid for the builder. So they'll help fill that all the way out. And then you've got maybe a little bit less where it's an interior designer, but it's really more of an interior decorator, where maybe it's some paint swatches. You might do some countertop selections, curtains, furniture, things like that.

Speaker 1:

But yeah, so there's just varying degrees of what designer means in the industry yeah, well, I mean, I think anybody who's looking to build a house should definitely like learn more about it. Yeah, it is. It's a cool process, just to see, you know, from the blueprint drawings and the cad draw up to seeing the 3d model and walking through the house.

Speaker 2:

Oh man, it's fun. It's basically like Sims for adults.

Speaker 1:

Like you know you design.

Speaker 2:

You build this house virtually and then you approve that model. So that's the way we do it. We sit there and we'll draw a whole 3D model, walk you through it, get you to approve every room, every layout, the interior, the whole thing as a whole just walking through a video game, basically. And then once that's complete, then we cut the blueprints from that. So we try to sort out as many field changes as we can in the office and we find that it eliminates quite a bit anywhere between like 70, 80%. Now you're still going to have some changes, but you get to see so many iterations.

Speaker 1:

You can sort through all those different things sitting in the office, right right, avoid change orders and pull on budgets and everything like that, if you want to see your white cabinets or black cabinets or red cabinets, we can paint them.

Speaker 2:

If you want to see a lazy Susan versus a corner cabinet, we can do that. As fast as you're talking, you're seeing these iterations happen, and that's some new technology. It's been out for a long time, but it's improved to the point now that we can do it pretty rapidly.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I think that is a lot of great information covered today. You know talking about meeting with a designer versus when to design and build, what a designer is doing, the traditional builds versus planning or development builds, and you know when to make those calls and when to integrate the builder and the designer in the process.

Speaker 2:

It's all really just great information shared today. Yeah, I think important takeaway, and even from some of these past episodes, is get the team established, get mentally in your head that it is a team you are a part of, even as a client, like the client is part of that team yeah so communication being just key. Uh, I think those are probably some of the biggest takeaways. Open communication can solve a lot of problems, absolutely well.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening. Don't forget to subscribe and follow us at constructive conversations, and until next time, thank you, thanks.

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Luke Barksdale

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Zac Daniel

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