Q: What is the average cost of a custom home in the North Scottsdale and Cave Creek area? What do you see, average ranges, and where is Bordeaux Builders in that pricing strategy?
A: The average price of the homes we’re doing is between $700,000 and up. That’s probably on the lower end. The average price, median, is probably closer to $800,000 to $900,000.
We can do custom homes with spending as much money as people want to spend on it. Starting somewhere in the sevens, and going up to eight, nine…you can get a pretty nice home for that price point.
Q: What is the average size of home you are building? Are these custom homes ranches, two‑story or do you exclusively do ranches?
A: We’ve pretty much seen a trend towards mostly single‑story homes nowadays. People don’t want the deal with the steps. It can be a little bit less expensive to build a two‑story home, and utility cost can actually be a little bit higher in a two‑story home. This offsets the money that you’re saving in the long run.
On a single‑story home, as long as the lot’s conducive to building a single‑story house, there’s really no reason to build a two-story home, especially when steps can be a drawback as with additional issues that can arise from living in a two‑story.
Q: A lot of people refer to luxury homes as dream homes. Is there a difference? It is just a term, but do you get that a lot? Do people look at your homes and go, “Wow, that’s my dream home”?
A: I think so. What’s happening is a lot of the people that are buying houses at this price point are middle‑ and some of the higher‑income professionals who are also looking for properties that are, I don’t want to call it their last home, but it’s the home that they’ve been saving up their money for all their lives.
Most people like to progress in their home first. We do see some people that are downsizing, but it’s definitely not as much as people that are looking for a home with a little bit more space and having more room to live in. This becomes their dream home, so to speak.
Q: Are the custom homes you build, typically, the main home, or are they second homes, third homes or fourth homes?
A: We’re seeing a trend towards one of two things. It’s either going to be their initial home, their step‑up home ‑‑ which, again, some people are calling it their dream home. It’s the home they that built ‑‑ or we’re seeing a lot of extra, second‑home buyers that appreciate having a place in Scottsdale.
Those people are coming from California. It’s a lot less expensive in Arizona than it is in California. The taxes are lower. The weather’s just as nice, and it’s a beautiful place with less traffic. You get the lower real estate and property taxes.
We’re seeing a lot of people from Canada, as well, who want to have a second home in the Scottsdale area. They want to be able to fly home to Canada, and fly back and forth to Scottsdale.
We’re seeing a big trend towards both of these types of custom home buyers. First home buyers, they’re looking for a dream home, and then also a second home buyer, usually from Canada, maybe from the Midwest. We actually have a lot of buyers coming in from the Chicago area. They don’t want to deal with the winters.
Q: Your custom home buyers are typically first‑time home-buyers. Bordeaux Builders have done a lot of spec homes. Clearly you have an eye for building a home, because they’re beautiful and people seem to like your custom home style. Do you work with people that want to their own customer design?
A: We do. We have, actually, a full design/build team. Anywhere from the actual initial acquisition of the lot, we have a full real estate division that can help our buyers select the lot.
We actually prefer working with people from the beginning, because then they don’t run into any surprises with the lot. Sometimes we’ll get people who will contact us. They’ve found a lot that they really like.
Maybe they can have it under contract. Maybe they’ve already purchased it. When I walk the lot with them, I can point out a lot of the potential issues that we can overcome.
Sometimes people end up getting a really good price on the lot, but the reason why is because they’re going to end up spending a lot of money on lot prep or have a lot of issues down the road. We like being involved in the process from start to finish so that we can help them, give them a general idea of where they are cost‑wise, and what it’s going to cost them.
There could be a lot of drainage issues in the North Scottsdale and Cave Creek area. If you don’t purchase the right lot, it can take a lot of extra work to get the lot prepared to even build a house, to find the right building envelope.
We can work with people from the beginning, and then we also a have a full design team that includes the architect, civil and structural engineers. They can actually put together the house plans and everything.
We’re happy to work with people on designing the house. We can give them ideas, but we’re also, certainly, open to letting them design their own home and give them input on where they can save money.
We can do full design on the exterior as well as the interior of the property. We have a professional design team that we offer to our customers to work with, or they’re welcome to work on their own, and then we can do the full vertical construction.
We even do backyard landscaping, as well. We do offer the full package for people, from start to finish.
Q: The homebuyer that you’re working with are from California, and Canada, and Midwest, their dream home. Are these families, or people that are more retired?
Your niche with custom homes is not too far out of the central thoroughfare of civilization. Where do you typically see the families that are being attracted to your luxury home skills?
A: Most of our buyers are over 30 with medium to higher income. Those families are looking for the school district. The North Scottsdale School and Cave Creek School District are phenomenal school districts in the area. We have a lot of people who want to be in those particular areas for the kids.
As we get into some of the older people, as well, who are either empty nesting and want to live in a nice, quiet community. Most of our homes are infill, so they’re all within a few minutes of shopping, dining, and entertainment.
We don’t really do a lot of building out in the outskirts. We can, if somebody’s interested, but most of our buyers right now, or most of the clientele that we’re dealing are people who want to be infill. They want to be close.
They’re active people. I believe they want to be around other people and they’re looking for a beautiful home to do that.
So I think anything from your mid‑ to upper‑level professional family, to empty nesters, to older people looking to live in a beautiful home or design their own home that they’ve wanted their entire life. We can provide that for people in all those ranges of needs and interests.
Q: What percentage of your business is remodel of existing homes, and turning them into dream homes and luxury homes?
A: It’s definitely a good portion of our business. There are a lot of people who have bought older homes in the Phoenix, Scottsdale area, Cave Creek area. Maybe right now they’re not ready to build something brand new, or custom.
Or maybe they love their house, they just want to make a change and modernize it. There are a lot of homes that are older, and they’re very charming homes in great communities. It’s obviously much less expensive to go in and do a remodel of the house, rather than tear it down and start it over.
We definitely have a good portion of people that have contacted us for full kitchen/bath remodel. We’re working on a project now where we’re demoing most of the interior of the house.
We can change the entire interior and modernizing the house, specifically so they can stay in the community and live with the neighbors they’ve been with for 20, 30 years. It is like having a brand new home.
A good, fresh look on a new house is sometimes what a lot of people are looking for. We’re happy to do that, as well.
Q: Are you turning your custom homes into the Internet of Things with home automation where everything can be controlled from your phone?
A: Absolutely, those whole new home automation systems are absolutely fantastic. It’s definitely the way to keep this going, so we’re very smart home ready with all of our properties that we do.
We customize the Home Automation/Internet of Things setup based on how they want to use it and what they’d like to utilize in the house. Those have become a very prevalent, to have a home automation system, so all of our homes are smart home ready.
Q: Are there any businesses that you’re working with that you wouldn’t mind mentioning that are partners, or products, or smart home things that you’ve been really blown away with lately that makes your life easy and gives that final touch that your customers love?
A: From a home automation standpoint we’ve really liked the Control4 system. We’ve put that in a few of our homes and our consumers seem to be very happy with them. It’s pretty much integrated into any home.
The opportunities with it are pretty much endless. It’s very functional. It’s compatible with most of today’s smartphones, as well as the opportunity for the amenities that the Control4s bring.
Anything from the wiring systems, surround sound for the home inside, and exterior patios, operating the garage doors, the lighting in the house, the front door security system. It’s absolutely endless.
There are people who go with a basic package, or they always expand it. That’s the other nice thing about it. If at the beginning you just want to control the front doors, a security door, security, and for garage doors, you can do that.
Down the road you can always add lighting packages on. You can add control of the full stereo system. We really like to do that, that system. They do it really well.
We work with both Android, and iPhone, and some of the other options that are out there, as well. Everything in the house can be controlled from a computer. It is pretty impressive.
Q: What’s the craziest or most odd thing that somebody has requested that you either add into their new home or their remodeling project?
A: We’ve had a few people request water slides in their pool. I did have someone ask me if there was an opportunity to build a water slide from the living room, out into the pool area, which, of course, there is. They didn’t wind up going with it, but it can be done.
We’re pretty much open to just about anything people want to bring us.
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