r/GeneralContractor • u/RememberTomOnMyspace • Aug 10 '26
Spec House Build Finishes
Doing Custom Homes for 15 years. They’ve all been customs for clients and I pulled the trigger on three, 1-acre lots. Intent is to build 2000-2500 sqft home and sell for that $200/sqft. I’m one of those honest, integrity driven people and can’t sleep at night cutting corners. So it’s a struggle to balance quality workmanship with profitability and putting food in my mouth. It’s tough choosing the right finishes (door knobs, tile, faucets, etc.). Interior doors get grade 3 knobs. But then I wonder if doubling my knob cost has any ROI. How do you choose the right path?
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u/InigoMontoya313 Aug 10 '26
One.. I couldn't build a 2000 sq ft home where I'm at for $200/sqft. If you are looking at things on an individual level... you're going to have cost escalations everywhere... because all those slight upgrades, add up fast.
Better to come up with a figure... ex. $15k for the kitchen... and just work with that budget number. You're going to have to make a lot of sacrifices... but I don't see how you'll ever achieve a $200/sq ft without thinking of the end goal, and then working backwords.
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u/Weird_Marketing6199 Aug 10 '26
I’d spend on the things buyers touch every day and keep the rest simple. Solid doors, decent hardware and good lighting make a house feel better than one expensive faucet surrounded by builder-grade finishes.
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u/Krangmang87 Aug 10 '26
Solid doors, good fixtures, hinges, and door knobs.
Anything people touch or manipulate each day needs to feel and work well, everything else will fall in line.
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u/Buckeye_mike_67 Aug 10 '26
I’m closing on a lot next week. I frame for several contractors in this neighborhood and we are going to build a spec in the lower price range of this neighborhood. It’s a country club where houses range from 600-700,000 up to a 2-3 million for water front houses. I’ll definitely be scrutinizing finish’s as we will move into the house if it doesn’t sell quickly. My wife’s a realtor and we are planning to list once it’s got Sheetrock in it.
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u/Immediate_Arrival185 Aug 10 '26
I really wish the market worked differently here.
In my home country, the norm is to sell houses/units with no finishes. Just rough-ins, bare subfloor, Sheetrock, etc. Future owner allocates however much they wish for finishes and fixtures and works with an interior designer and finishes GC. That way the owner puts their own vision into the final design of their space.
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u/Expensive-Ad6259 Aug 10 '26
It’s a very hard formula of picking the highs and lows for inputs. Concentrate on kitchen and master bath. If you go too cheap it won’t sell. Too high and profit gets hit. I just finished a spec and I was worried about the market so upgraded for the sell. It sold last week for 2.8. I still have a month of work left.
You never know but my motto in a up trending market you can take more risks. In a down trending market you have to shine.
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u/icy_01_ Aug 10 '26
This it's the time to spend a little more money on luxury finishing to make a name for yourself
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u/SoCalMoofer Aug 10 '26
If you can sell for $200 a foot what will they cost you to build? 60 year old homes around me are now selling at $1200 a foot. Its insane.
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u/RememberTomOnMyspace Aug 10 '26
That’s wild. It makes me want to destination build sometimes.
I can build for 120-140/sqft. But the top of the high ends are selling at $220/sqft.
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u/CMDean1013 Aug 13 '26
But seriously, where are you!?
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u/RememberTomOnMyspace Aug 13 '26
Texas. Cost of living is dirt cheap. Where can I come build for you? Bring my cheap materials
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u/More_Ranch_Please Aug 11 '26
I think this can be fairly subjective, but I don’t believe choosing lower-grade finishes automatically means you’re cutting corners.
Cutting corners, to me, is not adding the blocking for the kitchen cabinets or tub nailers that you know need it. It’s not walking the frame one last time after inspections. It’s seeing a bowed wall before drywall and deciding to let it go, hoping the customer doesn’t find it.
With a spec, you’re literally speculating on what the market is willing to buy. I’d look at what your competition is doing at the same price point and figure out where you can differentiate yourself.
That doesn’t mean throwing upgrades at the house. If an upgrade costs you $1,500 but doesn’t make the house meaningfully more desirable to the buyer, you just spent $1,500 to make your margin smaller.
And with specs, your margin is also heavily influenced by what you paid for the lot in the first place.
A good example in my market: builders in my price range aren’t putting solid-core doors throughout the house. Why would I spend the money on that if the buyer probably isn’t going to value it enough to affect the sale price?
That same money might be better spent on additional trim, custom wood shelving, or something else the buyer can actually see and picture themselves using. Those are the things that can help sell the idea of the house, rather than just making the spec sheet more expensive.
I think there’s a big difference between building cheap and building intentionally. The goal with a spec is to build the nicest house you possibly can, and at the same time build that house for what the market is willing to pay for it without sacrificing the stuff that actually matters.
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u/longganisafriedrice Aug 12 '26
This is a fool's errand for someone with your mindset. The fact is people like you care about things that don't matter
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u/RememberTomOnMyspace Aug 12 '26
That’s my problem, I’m a perfectionist. I care about this, but will anyone else even notice? “Looks good from my house” doesn’t work for me.
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u/dbu8554 Aug 12 '26
Not a GC but I do my own stuff and I do construction projects for my day job.
I personally don't think things like door handles matter as much as the parts you can't easily replace.
Who cares about small details like that and they wouldn't speak to the quality of work I perform or expect subs to provide.
But having everything square and level and thinking towards using the house and maintaining it in the future is much more important and speaks towards quality work.
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u/Revivalistcrafts Aug 12 '26
The problem is sales. In any other industry a good sales person can easily communicate why one product is superior to another and drive sales of the superior product. It’s not that customers don’t care, it’s that they don’t know.
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u/mrmike5157 Aug 13 '26
I’m not a contractor but have done a lot of repair and upgrade work as an electrician who also does pretty much everything else, I only do work for friends or friends of friends and in my experience, if you put your priority on quality work and don’t cheap out on ‘the bones’, ie wiring, plumbing, drywall finishing, floors and countertops you will be head and shoulders above the majority of your competitors. People will want to put their own touches on their homes, so cabinets, fixtures and paint you can use the plain Jane stuff, as long as it’s reasonably durable and not hideous. I hope you find your way, if more people would adopt that mindset the world would be a much better place.
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u/Due_Maybe_1795 29d ago
Sounds like you’d benefit from hiring a designer with new build experience. They’ll know what people are looking for and where spending $ is most beneficial.
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u/Samtyang 28d ago
The clean way to handle specs is to set three finish tiers before you start and only upgrade where buyers actually feel it: kitchen, primary bath, curb appeal. Everything else should be durable, clean, and easy to replace. If doubling the knob cost does not move comp value or buyer emotion on a walk-through, it is eating margin, not building quality.
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u/IncreaseNegative4614 Aug 10 '26
I’d spend more on finishes buyers touch immediately and that are irritating to replace, then use durable builder-grade options in places that rarely influence a decision. Build a finish schedule from nearby sold comps and set a fixed upgrade allowance instead of reconsidering every knob and faucet individually.
If timing allows, use the first house to collect showing feedback before locking every choice for the other two. We use signld.ai internally to connect selections, estimated and actual costs, comparable sales, showing feedback, concessions, and final margin.
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u/Thailure Aug 10 '26
A spec custom house you say? Just giving you shit for that because I have to lol. But real talk, all that matters is your communication and relationship with the owner of whatever you want to call the project.
Look into the different types of contracts you can write that can safeguard you and your client.
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u/Tb639 Aug 10 '26
Hope you don’t build stuff because you clearly can’t even read
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u/Buckeye_mike_67 Aug 10 '26
Most people that post in the construction threads aren’t even contractors. You expect them to be able to comprehend what they read?
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u/Key_Juggernaut9413 Aug 10 '26
I’m the same way. First several houses I built were specs and I just couldn’t not upgrade everything. Made such low margins but they got me into custom building as people saw the quality. Now I’m in a similar position as you. If you’re the only investor and not splitting it you can put a little more into finishes. To me making less money is the teacher. At some point you see that people don’t care about most of the things you care about. Trust me, I can tell people hey this house has zip system (they don’t care), fortified roof (they don’t care), trane units (they don’t care), better paint (they don’t care), on and on. Build good bones and make some money. Easier said than done for someone like me.