Selecting a Builder - Residential New Home Construction

Where do you even begin...if you are like me, you google "Kansas City custom home builder" and return a 1,000 or so builders with great websites that seem very qualified.  And I'm sure a lot are qualified.

My husband and I are very lucky to be close family friends with a local fireplace salesman.  When we started down this road, Matt immediately emailed him and solicited recommendations.  Based on his preliminary recommendations, Matt and I started touring model homes (luckily, the Kansas City Parade of Homes was going on).  It is amazing to compare model homes, but when doing so, I made some mistakes that I had to correct later (given the amount of mistakes we have made thus far, I can tell you are shocked :)

• Apples to Apples - It was so tempting to walk into a very expensive model home and instantly think "this builder is better."  We had to remind each other to make sure the builders were compared fairly against each other.  For example, each model home will likely have a list price shown.  Make sure to find out what part of the list price is the lot price.  That way, you are actually comparing the base price of the homes against each other.  Second, ask the builder how many model homes they have (if any) and specifically ask to see models in the price range you are considering.  I know seems obvious, but sadly, we made this mistake and saw AWESOME homes that were out of our price range.
• Confirm if the builder will work in your area - What?  A builder that advertises as a Kansas City Home Builder may not build in your pasture location?!?  We learned this the hard way.  While the south Stilwell and north Bucyrus area did not seem that far out of the way (after all, it is still the Blue Valley School District, right?), several builders notified us that their workers would likely not travel that far.  We ended up driving around our land and writing down names of builders with projects near our field.
• Checking out your potential builder - Aside from word of mouth, how else can you learn about a potential builder's business stability?  Well, it may be a bit paranoid, but I ended up searching the local public litigation sites to see whether the builder was involved in any litigation, and if so, how much.  While you will likely not be able to look at the particulars of a filing or case (without an attorney login), you can at least get a general sense of the builder's litigation history.  Below are links to the Johnson County, Kansas public court records search links and the Missouri court records search links.
• Johnson County, Kansas - http://www.jococourts.org/
• Missouri - https://www.courts.mo.gov/casenet/cases/searchCases.do?searchType=name

So, after all of our research and interviews, who did we choose?  Again, we met with several area custom home builders, and while all were so impressive, one builder checked all the boxes...

J.S. Robinson Fine Homes

Among many reasons why we chose J.S. Robinson Fine Homes...and why we are so THANKFUL they chose us too!

• Jeff Robinson met with us for at least four meetings, each several hours.  During those meetings, Jeff made amazing suggestions that really saved us money without losing the design of the house.
• Jeff and his son Max really seemed to love the house design.  After we decided to go with a modern farmhouse look, I'll admit I was a little nervous that it was a bit quirky or trendy.  Jeff and Max's genuine interest and comments reassured us that this was a really cool project.
• Edna!  Edna is the warranty manager for J.S Robinson, but her actual role may be J.S. Robinson's cheerleader!  She set up appointments and called me personally to confirm meetings.  Most importantly, she shared her sincere love of the builder's projects, the quality of their work, and the tight partnership they form with clients.
• In-house warranty - J.S. Robinson manages warranty matters in-house but also has a warranty insurance company.  This gives you a belt and suspenders approach!

Oh, did I mention they build houses that look like this:

Check out their facebook page as well for updates on this remarkable builder!  J.S Robinson's facebook!