My wife and I recently built our third house and our first custom home. Living in the Triangle…read morearea, we spent our Fall weekends visiting literally HUNDREDS of house during the Wake County Parade of Homes. We would regularly jot down notes about design features that we would like to put into our next house and made mental notes of what builders impressed us year after year. Time and time again we were impressed with the houses in the Parade that Homestead Building Company (HBC) put forth. I'm a self-admitted trim and millwork junky. I LOVE coffered ceilings, crown molding, and built-in shelving. One of Homestead's many selling points is their high-end "standard" trim package. If you are into 7" deep crown, 2-piece 12" deep coffered ceilings, and custom built-ins EVERYWHERE, without having to drop an extra $10K in millwork, then Homestead is your builder.
In addition to the trim package, Homestead uses high-end building materials such as reflective radiant barrier sheathing on the roof, lifetime warranty subfloors (which are glued AND screwed), tile installers that work absolute magic with ceramic and other materials that have a long-standing history of quality and performance.
Rewinding back to our house....my wife and I finally found the perfect neighborhood for us, Waterstone Reserve in Wake Forest. We met with several builders, toured many of their products, and ultimately landed with Homestead. Our decision to go with Homestead was not only based on the quality of their product, but with the people behind the Homestead name. We met with John H., the owner of Homestead Building Company at his office, and he made us feel completely at home and helped us through the challenge of designing and building our custom dream home. We never felt rushed or like we were wasting his time as we took our custom home from a sketch on the back of a napkin to the final, stunning, product.
Through the build process we worked with Jeff M., the construction foreman. Now, I'm an engineer and extremely detail oriented and Jeff addressed every request/inquiry/reminder/etc I had no matter how ridiculous or repetitive it may have been. If he didn't know the answer to a question, he didn't make something up just to appease me, he actually found the answer and followed up with me. This was a huge deal for me as it built trust between Homestead and I and instilled the faith that Jeff was truly there to take care of me. Frankly, it blows my mind that more custom builders aren't like this, especially at the $800K+ price point.
Homestead uses quality subcontractors, period. Remember, I'm an engineer and I'm trained to trust but verify and I did plenty of verifying. I had nothing but positive interactions with the framing crew, sheetrock crew, tile installers, cabinet installers, and trim carpenters.
The process of building a custom house is a great experience, but there is more to it than just the final product, service after the sale needs to be a priority for the builder because with a new house build, things WILL break and things WILL need service. Homestead has exceeded my expectations with regards to service. Items that need to be immediately addressed have been and the small items (nail pops, caulked seams, etc) will be addressed at routine warranty intervals scheduled at my convenience.
In summary, Homestead built a custom home for us that we are absolutely in love with. My wife and I sat on our back porch the other night and decided that if we were to every build another custom house in the Triangle area, we would definitely not hesitate to do so with Homestead Building Company. Thank You for a job well done, John, Jeff, Andy, and Ricky.
Jason & Karen Waterstradt