126 Elm Ave
Newton, NJ 07860
ph: (908)470-9530
kevin
Elegant Homes Design-Build is a comprehensive residential DESIGN & BUILD business developed by principal & owner Mr. Kevin Huttman in 2016.
Kevin is a college educated (B.A. in marketing, from the University of South Florida 1983) skilled craftsman and business man who has honed his skills as a builder through decades of experience doing remodeling/addition projects and new custom built homes, since May 1988.
Elegant Homes Design-Build was formed in 2016 as a means of providing clients with a more seamless, smoother, transition to the entire building process. Where by the design and the build process become a collaborative effort with ALL parties,(the client, the architect, the builder and possibly an interior designer) ALL immersed throughout the entire building process, from design concept, to the final build of your project.
Our goal, through doing this is essentially two fold. One, is to make the ENTIRE BUILDING process more streamlined by having ALL services working as ONE under one business umbrella, and second, is to ELIMINATE the commonly done, yet vastly unknown, UNDERBUDGETING deception performed by MANY architectural firms. We witnessed this with CONSISTENCY when we bid projects for various architectural firms. This practice can occur repeatedly when the design and build processes are done as separately entities and without any BINDING financial links.By having collaboration of all parties from the inception of the design up to the completion of the build, the misuse of erroneously low build budgets to capture you as a client, can TOTALLY be eliminated, there by creating a nice smooth harmonious design-build process that is much more pleasant for all... with NO SURPRISES! Therefore a win for all parties involved, and you as the client getting exactly what you desire as for design and your design correlating as it should with your budget.
Now, i'm NOT suggesting that ALL issues are coming from only one side, or from all architectural firms,they clearly are not. But we found, after DECADES IN THIS BUSINESS, that MANY are employing deceptive underbudgeting practices upon their initial meeting to discuss the clients projects scope and their budget.They then would provide a budget based on the scope of work discussed but this budget would be deceptively low. WHY? Because this practice provides a higher likelihood of capturing that potential client for a client. Many are using this underbudgeting ploy to varing degrees, all in an effort to gain the client's business. This CLEARLY exploits the bidding general contractors used AND their client. Furthermore,neither the client or the bidding general contractors have any idea this is occuring.The budget becomes a guarded secret. Why? Because this would expose their underbudgeting ploy and expose what is occurring to their client, so they dont want us to discuss the budget with THEIR client during ANY PHASE OF THE BIDDING PROCESS!. So If you choose to know the fine details as to how this is ALL done. i have laid out in clear detail, as to HOW and WHY they employ this deceptive skeem, all in an effort to capture you as a client, and ALSO as a means of capturing a greater volume of business. Please, read "Our Business" section which is next to this section. It is quite lenghty, but I promise you, it will be very eye opening and unveil issues that you had NO IDEA are truly happening!
Come have a FREE consultation and see if we are the right fit for you!
Call Kevin/Elegant Homes Design Build @ (908)470-9530
E-mail: Kevin@eleganthomesdesignbuild.com
You can always visit us on the web at Eleganthomesdesignbui!d.com
Have a wonderful day!
Elegant Homes Design Build was conceived in 2016, and formed to develop a more seamless approach between the design developed and the building of that design, where accurate build costs are correctly assessed to the design developed UPFRONT. This is an issue we found REPEATEDLY when architectural firms are doing DESIGN ONLY, and not the actual BUILDING of projects for their clients, as VERY few actually do.
Initial PROJECT BUILD COSTS ARE consistently MISALIGNED with what is DRAFTED for their client, and their client really has NO IDEA this is even occuring! This practice constantly creates an issue for the SO CALLED hand chosen "SELECT BIDDING CONTRACTORS" which are selected FOR YOU by the architectural firm to BID your project, which by the way, YOU are also told will be "A GOOD FIT FOR YOUR PROJECT". The reality is, after your architect has drafted preliminary plans, and after your initial bidding of your project, you discovered that the bids are coming in ALL over the place. This we WITNESSED REPEATEDLY for DECADES and OCCURING from architectural firm to architectural firm.
During the bidding phase the contractors are surppressed from asking what the client's budget is and this applies during any phase of the bidding, by telling the client that they want to hear all feed back that the general contractors are telling them during the bidding of their project. What the client DOES NOT KNOW is If we ask the client what their budget is and discover that its too low and tell them so, then in MOST all cases that feed back when discussed with the architect will get us quietly black listed from any future projects to bid. We are to just ASSUME that their build budget you were told is adequate. Hmmm..... Now why do you think that would be?..To conceal that your intial build budget you were told is TOO LOW.. and project THEIR build cost as valid...I'll tell you exactly why, because a more affordable number has a much high likelihood of capturing your business and they created a way to surpress us from asking what your budget is to conceal their deception. Furthermore to add credibility to their own deception they are WELL AWARE that the bids WILL come in all over the place and the lowest bidder will come in well above their budget figure.This we witnessed repeatedly.
So after the FIRST round of preliminary bids the client would go back to the architect for advice, and mind you, this ALSO happens EVERY SINGLE TIME, where you are told, well.... you (the homeowner) added a lot more to the size and scope of work to your project than we initially discussed, so now we will fine tune your project in size and scope, and then send it back out to the bidding contractors, where you then will be able to make your selection of contractor. Then you might have gotten told this.....Now... "Who ever you hire, we hold no responsibility for the performance of the contractor you hire."
So once again, at the second round of bidding, you notice that the lower priced contractors have an edge due to their initial low price during the first round of bidding, yet the bids still remain all over the board.
So where do you become drawn to and why? You become drawn to the cheaper contractors due to your belief that the architects budget range is accurate. So you as a homeowner justify, in a host of different ways, why one of the cheaper contractors is the right one for your project. After all, you believe the architect MUST know what it cost to build these projects, he or she drafts them all the time. What you don't realize is you got snowed at the initial meeting when you were discussing what you wanted for design, and how much you wanted to spend. Your build budget WAS AND IS totally misaligned with what it should actually cost to build your project and this was done KNOWINGLY, where the architect also used justification to what you were told, by saying...well.. we will send your design out after preliminary drawings, and see where it comes in at with "select contractors", that we use, and ones we feel "will be a good fit for your project". Furthermore, you're told... IF we have to, we'll, back down the size and scope of your project to align it with your budget. Yet that gap between your design drafted and your build budget they told you, are worlds apart to even build what is drawn..Thats where the problem lies, and they have devised a very crafty way to get around this issue and NEVER get caught in there deceptive ploy..which is actually done for three reasons. One, because the other architects are doing the same thing but to varing degrees, two it captured you as a client, and three, because it captures a larger volume of total business for them. Not to mention the ability to capture more billable drafting hours when you are kept in the dark to your increasing build cost when you keep adding more and more elements to your design.
So now your next thought is ...Why are the bids sooo spread apart in price if these are "select bidding contractors that are suppose to be a good fit for your project".Well... here's the true reason for such a wide spread in prices, and it's NOT the conclusions the architects guide you into believing.First of all, the architects are WELL AWARE that the prices that projects come in at, are commonly found to have huge spreads in prices.This occurs NEARLY EVERY TIME!. But there are True reasons for the wide spread in your bids, and there are two contributing reasons for the huge variations you see in price.The first issue is your plans lack a huge array of pertinent information for pricing ,which comes down to your contractor NOT doing a complete and detailed site inspection, while on site, and writing notes of a host of issues and details, in order to price your project accurately.This ESPECIALLY applies to remodeling/ addition projects. Yet FEW actually spend any time looking closely for these numerious on site issues, which the plans DO NOT address or detail. They just briefly look at things and are out the door. They are not addressing an array of site issues and conditions, which may simply be noted on the plans as "match existing" or NOT reflected in the plans AT ALL! Now these items are usually numerous and can involve MANY different trades that your project encompasses. Their impact will ABSOLUTELY affect your projects total price HUGELY!! These MISSED SITE ISSUES,which have NOT been addressed,and priced accordingly, for labor and material,are one of the factors for such HUGE price differences.Compound this with inexperience at pricing this size project, lack of construction knowledge, coupled with not spending the appropriate time to bid the project, now you see how the bids end up all over the place. These short comings within the estimating process are the true reasons YOU see such huge variations in prices. Furthermore,this is ALL happening at a point which is LONG BEFORE the actual building begins, and NO ONE even has a clue that they have totally UNDER ESTIMATED the project.
So why would your architect underbudget your project?
Because if I'm telling you a budget that sounds more affordable to you, are you more apt to do the design? That answer is without question ...YES! This issue is a systemic problem that exists throughout the residential architectural industry which I've witnessed after being on the BUILD side ONLY since May 1988, prior to going design/build.
So you, as a homeowner, are misled into believing,and mind you, with no one deterring you from the cheaper contractors and you conclude through multiple ways to justify why the cheaper contractors are the right choice for your project, such as... They are a smaller builder than the others, and have less over head to operate, or they have better buying power for materials than the other builders or another, they have their own in house crew so their labor costs are less...Every one of these things are NOT TRUE, especially the in house labor claim. What it cost to field an employee for the workmens compensation portion of insurance is so expensive that most all general contractors use a skeletal in house crew and the remainder are sub contractors,yet the homeowner will use one or all of these to justify why they chose the cheaper contractor, and many many times they were hugely less, yet many times, the architect would never deter the client away from those bidders.
Now the architectural firms are able to keep using this deceptive ploy over and over because there is no lawful body to keep them in check.
In the front end of bidding they monitor the so called "SELECT BIDDING CONTRACTORS" by asking the homeowners to provide feed back as to what the contractors are saying to them..and what I've discovered is virtually NONE of the other bidding contractors will ask the homeowners what their budget is..it's just assumed its an adequate budget that the architect has provided when the homeowners first sat down with the architect. Now if WE, at our intial meeting or during the bidding phase come to ask you ,what your budget is,and we tell you that your build budget is too light. Then that feedback, when herd by the architect, will get us quietly black listed from pricing ANY future projects...Thats how they are able to exploit the contractors! Furthermore if you hire one of the "select contractors" who is much cheaper, MOST of these unethical architects won't deter you away from these much cheaper contractors, because they don't want to be exposed in their deceptive ploy. Now, after hiring that more affordable contractor, and down the road, the build begins to unfold as underestimated and build costs are finally unveiling themselves to be misaligned with what is drawn, and you contact the architect as to the issues you're experiencing with the builder during the construction.The architect simply says..Gee... I'm really sorry but we've had a great relationship with that contractor in the past, they must be having financial problems or something..I'm really sorry. They are kept totally clean and insulated of the situation, VOID OF ANY WRONG DOING AND, furthermore you never even make the connection that you got drawn to this contractor, due to the architects low INITIAL build budget range, which you thought was an accurate range provided. So you actually got misled into thinking you hired an inept builder with financial issues.
So this entire DECEPTIVE PLOY allows architectural firms to never get caught in their deceptive skeem and to use this tactic repeatedly to capture new business and grow their businesses.But for the honest, ethical builders it creates an environment which is truly NOT A FAIR competitive bidding environment,as it's portrayed to be.This environment totally inhibits OUR business growth, making it very difficult to land projects with any acceptable level of profitablity. Furthermore it creates issues with securing projects with regularity, not to mention the thousands of hours wasted estimating for FREE every year due to this DECEPTIVE PRACTICE.
It's time someone unmask this concealed unethical practice so the general public becomes aware of this unethical practice and finally assure clients of only ethical, honest, business practices that are performed with integrity ..and you will find that with us... Elegant Homes Design Build....
Call us for a free consultation Kevin /Elegant Homes Design Build at (908)470-9530 or e-mail kevin@eleganthomesdesignbuild.com
You can also visit us on the web at eleganthomesdesignbuild.com
Copyright 2017 Elegant Homes Design-Build. All rights reserved.
126 Elm Ave
Newton, NJ 07860
ph: (908)470-9530
kevin