Architectural Styles When Building Your Custom Home

When building a fully custom home, the sky’s the limit as to what type of features, customizations, materials, and new home design you would like to use.  One of the options that home buyers forget they have is the exterior and interior architectural style that is available to them when designing the facade and different rooms of the home. Architectural style can truly define the way a home looks and feels both on the outside and the inside. The outside look is more obvious, such as the French and Spanish architecture you see on the many homes and townhomes in the French Quarter.  The interior architecture can be more subtle and less well known to other people and even your builder.  If you have your heart set on a specific architecture or floorplan layout based on an architectural style, don’t hesitate to let us know during the floorplan design of your custom home.

Several architectural styles are well-defined and easy to recognize and are listed below:

Mediterranean
Just like it sounds, this type of home makes use of exterior spaces in order to soak up the feel of the Mediterranean (or in this case, the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Pontchartrain in the Greater New Orleans Area).  These types of floorplans will have extensive verandas, courtyards, patios, sun rooms, or covered screened porches. The exterior finish typically includes plaster or stucco with low slope or flat roofs.  Interior details include decorative tile and exposed wood beams.

Southern
In order to compensate for the extreme heat of southern climates, southern architecture emphasizes

protecting the exterior of the home with wide covered porches around the entire home, long overhangs, functional shutters, covered verandas, elevated, open living spaces and sometimes decorative columns in the front.

Modern
Introduced during the ’50’s and 60’s, modern architecture becomes more simplistic with less ornamental design.  Horizontal windows, plain fireplace surround – basically ranch-style homes with low roof lines.  However, this simplicity is offset by high-quality material finishes, such as stone, wood flooring, and marble.

Cottages
Just like they sound, cottages are designed to be smaller, lower maintenance homes with incredible use of square footage space.  The term cottage brings to mind a cramped, small home with a lower mortgage, but builders have been quite innovative in building cottages with excellent use of space in the floorplan. Built-in window seats and shelving utilize empty walls to create more space for “stuff.” A spacious front porch also adds to the size of a cottage home.

At Ron Lee Homes, we have built numerous styles of architecture and have many different floorplan styles from which to choose.  You can bring us your ideas and pictures, and we can design the style of home that you want.  Call 985-626-7619 or E-mail Info@RonLeeHomes to make an appointment to create your floorplan design today!

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Builder Tips When You Build a New or Custom Home

As a builder, we offer an in-depth building process from design and layout to the final punchlist.  We try to put ourselves in the shoes of our home buyers to make sure we anticipate the questions and needs you will have during the home building process, especially if this is your first new home build or custom home build.  However, we also want to give you as much industry advice as possible to make sure that you feel comfortable with working with us as a builder. Below are some tips to following when working with a builder.

Use a Realtor Who Represents Your Interests
While we, as a builder, don’t use an on-site sales representative, some builders and developments do.  Make sure that you find a Realtor who is used to working with new home sales and knows the ins and

outs of information that you, as a home buyer, will need to know during the building process.  That way, if your builder does not explain something to you in full or there is missing information, your buyer’s representative will know the questions to ask and information to get.

Research Your Builder
One way to know if you are using an excellent, quality builder is to view their work, while it is under construction. As we constantly have new or custom homes under construction, we can take you on a tour of our homes to show you the craftsmanship and quality construction in person and answer any questions you may have. Another way to vette your builder is to read any testimonials or reviews. We have multiple testimonials on our website as well as reviews on social media of our satisfied customers. Finally, we have an extensive list of Completed Projects on our website which show in-depth pictures of the finished homes and remodels we have done.  You can get a a good idea of the features and fixtures that we offer in all of the new homes and custom homes that we build.

Know Your Specs
When you view a completed home or model home of a builder, there may be upgraded features or thoughtful extras which may or may not be included in the floorplan that you select or design.  As a

builder, we try to be as thorough as possible to cover every detail in your new or custom home, so that you know exactly what types of features, fixtures, and trim that your home will have once it is built.  However, if you want to go room-by-room asking about the features of each room to ensure that you understand all of the specific details that will be built in your home, we have no problem with that either.

Written Agreement
Once you are comfortable with everything that will be included in your home, make sure that everything we put in our agreement with you is to your complete satisfaction.  We pride ourselves on finishing our projects on time and on budget, barring any unforseeable weather events. Therefore, our agreements have specific budgetary and timeline parameters that are defined specifically in our contracts.  Make sure that if you are working with another builder that they offer you the same.

Building a new home is more complicated than shopping for a previously-owned home. However the flexibility of having choice of selection of flooring, cabinets, countertops, paint colors, fixtures, appliances, and so much more can make the building process a very rewarding experience.  So, whether you use us as a builder or someone else, we hope that you find these tips useful.

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Builders See an Almost 13% Increase in New Home Sales

Throughout all regions of the United States in February, the real estate industry had something to celebrate. All regions increased new home sales compared to the same time in February, 2016.  In the South, new home sales increased 3.6%, which was 7.9% higher than the past year.  Approximately 592,000 new homes sold in February, 2017, which was 12.8% higher than last year and 6.1% higher than January new home sales.
Bloomberg analysts had estimated 565,000 in new home sale for this time period but reporting from the Census Bureau and Department of Housing showed differently.  The number of new homes available for sale going into the month of March, 2017 was approximately 266,000, which is a 5.4 month’s supply of new homes for sale.  In January, this amount was a 6.4 month’s supply, but February’s new home sales numbers trimmed this amount substantially.

The average price of a new home sold for the month of February stood at $296,200, which was lower than January’s average price of sold new homes which was $308,200.  The total average sales price increased substantially month-over-month from $355,300 to $390,400.  It increased even more when compared to February one year ago – up from $349,400.

All of this is great news for new home builders and custom home builders building new homes for sale throughout Southeast Louisiana and the rest of the Gulf Coast.  Ron Lee Homes is a St. Tammany Parish custom home builder who is building and selling new homes throughout West St. Tammany Parish.  For more information about building your new home, Contact Us at 985-626-7619 or E-mail Info@RonLeeHomes.com.

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Builders Surveyed About Green Building Products or Practices

A list of the 21 green building products or practices used per the standards of the National Green Building Standard Certification include solar water heaters, passive solar design, energy management systems, reused or salvaged materials, smart appliances, prefabricated components, building materials driven from renewable resources, recycling construction waste, building materials with recycled content, alternatives to dimensional lumber, on-demand water heaters, materials from regional suppliers, water conserving faucets and fixtures, efficient construction techniques that minimize material usage, moisture control measures to enhance durability, improving the home’s thermal envelope, duct systems designed to minimize leakage, ENERGY STAR® appliances, programmable thermostats, high efficiency HVAC systems, and low-e windows.

According to a survey of 337 single-family builders, builders of this survey averaged using 10.2 green products or practices in the new homes that they built.  Topping the list at 95% of builders using this green product were low-e windows.  Other very popular items included high efficiency HVAC systems at 92% of builders, programmable thermostats at 88%, ENERGY STAR® appliances at 80%, and duct systems designed to minimize leakage at 78%.

Improving the home’s thermal envelope, which is a practice that Ron Lee Homes strongly endorses came in at 67%, as well as moisture control measures to enhance durability and efficient construction techniques that minimize material usage.

Interestingly, all builders surveyed said that they used at least one green building product. Builders have the voluntary option of actually getting a green certification of the new homes that they build.  Programs such as ENERGY STAR®, LEED, and programs run by state or local jurisdictions allow a builder to certify their home a green standard.  Of the surveyed builders, 22% said that they always or almost always get this certification. Ron Lee Homes is a Certified Green Builder through the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).  Our new homes are tightly construction to minimize as many effects of the environment on the home as possible.  Contact Ron Lee Homes today to find out about designing and building using green products and practices.  Call 985-626-7619 or E-mail Info@RonLeeHomes.com.

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