Pay the Number You Signed — Custom Home Builder in Knoxville, TN
Most custom-home quotes are honest about the price and quiet about the allowances. Ours publishes both. Thirty-one years in East Tennessee, open book, every subcontractor invoice visible to you.
How Two Honest-Looking Quotes Differ by $180,000
Nobody lies about the price. They set the allowances low, you pick what you actually wanted, and the difference is yours. Here are ours, in writing, so you can hold another bid up against them.
Flooring · we allow $14/sq ft installed
A common competing allowance is $7 to $9. That buys builder-grade LVP. If you walk into a showroom and choose the tile you actually liked, you are $10 to $14 a foot over — call it $35,000 on a 3,000 ft home, and the contract never changed.
Cabinetry · we allow $34,000 for a 3,000 ft home
Bids frequently carry $18,000 to $22,000, which is stock cabinetry with a painted door. Semi-custom with soft-close and a real island starts around $34,000, and full custom starts around $60,000. Ask any bid what its number buys.
Plumbing & lighting fixtures · $16,000 and $9,000
The two allowances most often set at builder-grade. A single freestanding tub and a decent shower system can eat half of the plumbing allowance on its own, and nobody discovers that until selections week.
Site work · quoted per lot, never allowanced
Clearing, driveway, septic or sewer tie-in, retaining, utilities. On a steep Knoxville lot this ranges from $30,000 to over $120,000, and it is the line most commonly missing from a square-foot price entirely. We price your actual lot before you sign anything.
Or take the fixed price and stop worrying
Once selections are made we will convert to a fixed price with the allowances closed out. No overruns, no selections anxiety, and the number on the contract is the number at closing. Most of our clients do this; a few prefer open-book cost-plus and we are happy either way.
Fixed Price, Cost-Plus, or Open-Book
A custom home is the only large purchase where you agree the price before the thing is designed. How that risk is shared is the contract, and most people never find out which one they signed.
Fixed price puts the risk on us and costs a contingency for it. Cost-plus puts it on you and is cheaper if nothing goes wrong. Open-book cost-plus — ours — is cost-plus where you see every invoice and our fee is a stated percentage that does not move when the costs do. That last detail is the one worth checking on any contract, because a percentage fee on a rising cost is a builder who profits from overruns.
- ✓Our fee is a stated percentage, fixed in dollars at contract signing
- ✓You see subcontractor invoices, not a summary of them
- ✓Convert to fixed price once selections are made, if you'd rather
- ✓Every draw comes with lien waivers from every sub who was paid
What We Build
New homes and major renovations. We don't take on small remodels — we'd be the expensive option and we'll say so.
Why the Same Change Costs Three Times as Much in Month Nine
Change orders are not a scam, but their timing is everything, and almost nobody explains that at the start.
On paper it's free
Move a wall during design and it costs a revised drawing. The single most valuable hour you will spend on this project is the one where you slow down before the plans are stamped.
In framing it's a day
Same wall, framed but open. Materials plus labour, usually under two thousand dollars, and no other trade is affected yet.
After rough-in it's four trades
Now electrical, plumbing, HVAC and insulation have all committed to that wall. The same move is five figures and a two-week schedule hit, because every one of them has to come back.
Selections have deadlines for this reason
We give you a selections calendar at contract. It is not administrative fussiness — a tile decision made three weeks late stops the tiler, and the tiler's next slot is a month out.
Every change is priced before it happens
Written, signed, with the schedule impact stated. We do not do verbal changes, which protects you far more than it protects us.
Contingency is yours, not ours
We carry 5% for the unforeseen. Whatever is unspent at close-out comes back to you, itemised.
In Knoxville, the Ground Decides the Budget
East Tennessee lots are rarely flat and frequently rock. A lot that looks like a bargain at $95,000 can carry $120,000 of site work behind it — rock excavation, a switchback driveway, engineered retaining, a long utility run — while a flatter lot two streets away at $150,000 carries $30,000 and finishes cheaper.
We will walk a lot with you before you buy it and price the site work honestly, including when the answer is don't buy this one. It costs us an afternoon and it has talked several clients out of a purchase we would have profited from.
- ✓Site work priced on your actual lot, not carried as an allowance
- ✓Rock, slope, septic feasibility and utility runs assessed before purchase
- ✓We'll tell you when a lot isn't worth building on
- ✓A soils report where the slope or the drainage warrants one
Houses We've Built Around Knoxville
How Ten to Sixteen Months Goes
You get this calendar at contract, with your selections deadlines already on it.
Consultation & lot
An hour, then a walk of the lot if you have one. Site work priced honestly before you commit to the land.
Design & real allowances
Plans, engineering, permits — and an allowance schedule with numbers that survive contact with a showroom. Three to five months.
Contract & draw schedule
Open book or fixed price, your choice. Draw schedule tied to work in place, with lien waivers attached to each one.
Build
Site, foundation, frame, dry-in, rough-ins, inspections, finishes. Weekly photographs and a running cost report you can open any day of the week.
Walkthrough & warranty
Punch list before closing, contingency reconciliation showing what came back, then a one-year warranty walk at eleven months while it is still ours to fix.
Questions Before You Choose a Builder
What does a custom home cost per square foot in Knoxville?
Roughly $210 to $400 a foot for the house, and the range is that wide because it is mostly finish level. But treat any square-foot number with suspicion — it almost never includes site work, driveway, landscaping or the lot, and those are the lines that move budgets most. Ask what a number excludes, not what it includes.
Why is your bid higher than the others?
Usually because our allowances are real and theirs are not. Put the two allowance schedules side by side — flooring, cabinetry, plumbing fixtures, lighting — and the gap normally explains the difference and then some. We're happy to do that comparison with you, including on a bid you like better than ours.
What is a lien waiver and why do you keep mentioning it?
It's a signed document from a subcontractor confirming they've been paid. Without them, a sub the builder failed to pay can put a lien on your house even though you paid the builder in full. We attach them to every draw. If a builder can't produce them, that is the answer to your question about that builder.
Can we do some of the work ourselves?
Yes, and we'll tell you honestly which parts are worth it. Painting and landscaping, often. Anything that another trade depends on, almost never — a week's delay from an owner-supplied item costs more than the item saved.
How long, really?
Ten to sixteen months from ground-break, plus three to five months of design and permitting before that. The single biggest cause of overrun isn't us or the trades — it's selections made late, which is why the calendar comes with the contract.
Do you build on our plans, or do we have to use yours?
Either. If you bring a set we'll price it as drawn and tell you where it's expensive for no benefit. If you don't, our design-build package prices the design as it's drawn, which is how you avoid falling in love with a house you can't afford.
Bring Us the Bid You Like Best
We'll read its allowance schedule with you, line by line, and tell you what it will actually cost. Even if you go with them.
Tell Us About the House
Whether you have a lot, and roughly what you're budgeting, are the two things that shape the first conversation. We'll come back within a working day.
- Visit us2210 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN 37919
- Call us(865) 555-0158
- Email usbuild@halcombehomes.com