Custom Home Building in Bend Oregon is what we do. Our philosophy at Sienna Building is to make the custom home building experience enjoyable for our clients.

Over the past few months we have met with two couples who did not invest in pre-construction planning. But why? First, they both went about the design of their homes without focusing on the number one item first, THE BUDGET. Second, neither of them hired Sienna Building to complete the Pre-Construction Planning for their homes, albeit after the fact. The first reason is easy to understand. Most people are very emotional when it comes to designing and building a home. Maybe their enthusiasm got in the way of their better judgment, or maybe they only heard what they want to hear. Regardless, it is foreign territory to most people.

The second is a little harder to pin down. Most builders don’t go about trying to bid for a fee because they probably feel that the buyer will resist this. We understand that we are working against the status quo but when you see the results of the status quo, it sure makes sense to work against it. Were these two couples just not willing to hear what they didn’t want to hear? Maybe they were just unwilling to invest more money into something that “in their mind” was a losing proposition. I always chalk these up to “we can’t help the ones unwilling to listen.”

On the flip side let’s talk about how it goes when Pre-construction planning goes right. Here is what our most recent client said about our services.

“It was a two-part process: A Pre-construction Planning Phase and a Construction Phase. The way the process was designed made us feel very comfortable to move forward. The process was open and easy. What might have been a difficult process for us simply wasn’t.

Pre-construction included everything required to get the home designed and blueprinted for a fee. We could take our blueprints at that point and hire a different builder if we chose, or hire Sienna Building. The two-phase process made us feel comfortable enough to move forward. During that time, we never considered looking for a different builder. We felt comfortable that if we were going to be able to build our new home, Steve was going to be the guy to do it.” R. Ross

Words like “very comfortable, open, and easy” are exactly how we want our client to feel before they sign a building contract with us. By taking the time to plan and budget for our client’s house, they had a stress-free building experience and are actually disappointed that the process is over because they enjoyed it so much!

Custom Home Building in Bend Oregon is what we do. Our philosophy at Sienna Building is to make the custom home building experience enjoyable for our clients.
In our last blog, we were talking about what can happen when pre-construction planning is not part of your building process. Recently we were approached by a couple who did almost the exactly the same thing as the last couple, designing a home without pre-construction planning. In this case, however, they were working closely with a builder. They designed a beautiful home, had a budget of $200.00 per square foot and supposedly designed to that budget. At the end of the design process, the builder came back and said he could no longer build the home for $200.00 per square foot, leaving the unsuspecting homeowners anxious, frustrated and feeling betrayed.

We met with the couple to go over the plans and explain our Pre-Construction Planning process to them. We asked them a couple of really basic questions about their budget and the design. It was easy to show them how we could have easily saved them money during the design process. We then asked them if the previous builder ever asked these questions. Of course the answer was no. After investing over $20,000.00 in design this couple hopes to have the home built for their original budget.

What do these two scenarios have in common? First, they both went about the design of their homes without focusing on the number one item first, THE BUDGET. Second, neither of them hired Sienna Building to complete the Pre-Construction Planning for their homes, albeit after the fact.

Next time: We’ll explain what is involved in our Pre-Construction Planning system. You’ll hear from an actual client who reaped the benefits of using our proven system.

Custom Home Building in Bend Oregon is what we do. Our philosophy at Sienna Building is to make the custom home building experience enjoyable for our clients. I am sure most builders would say that that is one of their goals as well, but what efforts have they taken to make sure this is the result?

A few months ago we were contacted by a potential building client who came to us with plans they had recently completed asking if we were interested in bidding on their project. We met with them, reviewed their plans and then they stated, “We are hopeful that you will find some ingenious way to build our home for $150.00 per square foot.” Building a home for $150.00 is not a difficult task, but in this case it was a 4,300 square foot home with a tile roof, media room, sauna and so on. I think you know where I am going with this; you shouldn’t design a home and THEN expect some ingenious way to have it fit your budget. Obviously, this unfortunate couple did not do any Pre-Construction Planning.

We explained our Pre-Construction Planning services to the couple and told them that if they were willing pay our nominal fee, they could have a complete line item budget and specifications developed for their home so they would know exactly what it cost to build the home. I also stated that before I was willing to engage with them as a client, they needed to understand that you can’t have it both ways. You can’t expect to build a home for $150.00 per square foot without revising the plan and if they were unwilling to revise the plan, then they will need to increase their budget. Unfortunately they were not willing revise the plan or budget and we parted ways. The last time we spoke they were considering scrapping the whole thing and selling the lot, after they spent over $20,000.00 on the design! Pre-Construction Planning could have saved them a lot of heartache.

Next time: We’ll talk about another couple in a similar situation, and how they may scrap the entire building process as a result of not doing pre-construction planning.