In our experience, the cost of a custom home in Maryland or Washington DC is anywhere from 200 to 400 per square foot. This is about twice as much as what a “production home” costs – that is, a home in a community or subdivision where the houses are virtually identical on the inside.
Custom work takes into account your personal preferences, tastes, and needs. Individual pricing on the features you choose may be a little more exclusive, but it gives you the option of getting what you want and selecting any available product.
Another significant difference between a production home and a custom home is that most custom home builders have long-established relationships with their subcontractors; we are rarely looking for new subcontractors, because we know that the ones we have are going to show up, we know that they know what we expect of them, and that’s what we get. We don’t have a lingering concern about what the quality of work is going to be.
In essence, the production builder is geared towards the bottom line, while most custom builders are geared towards making sure the homeowner is happy and that we gain some referrals from the work.
Benefits Of A Custom Home
One of the most apparent benefits of a custom home is that you won’t be stuck with a cookie-cutter-style house. Whether you’re going high-end or leaning toward a production-home, you’re still going to drive through a neighborhood of 10 to 15 homes, and you will see your house repeated at least four more times. It might be a different color, or they might have installed different colored shutters, but if you look at the house closely, it is clearly the same as yours.
With a custom home, the design is unlimited, in terms of what you can do. The only constraint you may face is what the size of the lot dictates in terms of the size of the house.
So, if you wanted the front porch to be a little larger because you like sitting out on the front porch, you can do that. There won’t be an HOA telling you what color you can paint your house or what size house you can put there, how far back from the street it has to be, and what materials you can use to finish the exterior of your home. If you want stone, you can go to the quarry and pick out the exact stone that you want to use, and nobody can talk you out of it.
Get The Features You Want
Depending on your specific needs, custom work doesn’t necessarily add any extra expense. It’s more about accommodating your needs, and that can be built-in during the design phase. For instance, if you have a large dining room table, we will consider that from the start. We may need to add four or five feet to the room, and it doesn’t add too much to the cost, but it does make it more livable for you.
Other considerations we may talk about include how often you entertain, if you have family over a lot or if you have grandkids, and how long you plan on living in the home.
Knowing these details from the start helps us support your ongoing needs too, such as aging-in-place. For example, one of our homeowners told us that they planned to live in the house for the rest of their lives. So, we installed three-foot doors throughout the home, so if there were ever a time that they needed to accommodate an assistive device, no additional work would need to be done.
Cost vs. Value In A Custom Home
Typically, the price of a custom home in Maryland or DC, in the 3500-square-foot range, could be anywhere between $700 thousand to $1.4 million, depending on the selections and finishes you choose.
Some of the things that could drive up the cost include the type of HVAC system—is it a traditional system, or geothermal, for example—the exterior finishes, and the interior selections, such as tile, flooring, cabinets, and so on.
Despite the additional costs you may incur up front, a custom home delivers value in ways that can be best appreciated in an improved quality of living. You won’t have to compromise your tastes, style, or needs one iota, and if we plan well, you likely won’t have to make too many changes for decades to come – meaning you will actually save money in the end, because you won’t have to remodel to accommodate different phases of life.
Are you thinking about building a custom home? We’d love to hear what you’ve got in mind. Reach out today to learn more about how we can help.
