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In times like these it is only natural for consumers to take advantage of the competitive market and stretch their dollar to the limits.  We compare prices, quality, warranty, and service.  We compare one builder to the next, knowing that someone out there wants the sale worse than the next guy.  But this approach may not always be the best when it comes to building a custom home, as this purchase is significantly different than most.  Building a home may likely be one of the largest investments you undertake in your lifetime.  It requires a mutual trusting relationship- one that will continue long after the sale.

So having said that, there are two schools of thought:  The Design/Build Approach and The Design-Bid-Build Approach.  The Design/Build Approach involves an owner, builder, designer/architect.  This methodology involves the initial team working together with a supporting cast of surveyors, engineering companies, interior designers, etc.  In this approach the Design/Build team works as one in a synergistic fashion to seamlessly take you from design to the turn key construction of your new home on budget.

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Do you or someone you know have plans to build a custom home in the future?  We would love to find out more, give us a call at 210-341-6430 or to have one of our senior partners get back with you click here now.

Do your homework, or let us do it for you!!  At Diamante Custom Homes, every home we build is ENERGY STAR CERTIFIED to the new version 3 standard.  Our homes must meet strict guidelines for energy efficiency set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

It is imperative to us that our product MUST deliver the features and performance demanded by our clients, in addition to increased energy efficiency.  At Diamante Custom Homes, we do not just expect you to take our word that your home will be built to the highest efficiency possible.  We have done all the legwork for you and will issue you a written LIFETIME guarantee on your monthly energy bill.  If you follow our proprietary process, you’ll experience dramatic savings. You’ll quickly realize a payback on the nominal investment, and the savings will continue on as long as you own your home.

Every new home buyer wants to be confident that their home will perform to the highest energy efficient standards possible, but most settle for whatever their builder gives them. It’s what you don’t see behind the drywall and stucco that makes an enormous difference and determines whether you get a tight, energy efficient structure or one that loses far too much of your expensive heating and cooling.

Will you just take your builders word for it or even better, will you accept what your builder gives you as their standard Energy package.  We at Diamante Custom Homes truly get to know you and your wants and needs.  For example, inside the building envelope which insulation is the best for you?  Which type of insulation performs the best and how long will it take to realize the savings on that up front investment?  We will give you options and show you documented past examples of the cost of a certain type of insulation, the upfront cost, your exact monthly bill guarantee, and the time it will take to realize the savings.

We want you to feel confident during the designing stages of your home that you have not left anything to chance- we offer you the truth and budget options.  If you would like to talk further about how our ENERGY STAR CERTIFIED process can work for you,  give us a call and talk to one of our senior staff 210-341-6430.  If you do not have time to talk right now, let us get back with you!!

At Diamante Custom Homes, we have partnered with a third party Research & Development Co. that does nothing but study the aspects of insulation, air quality, comfort requirements, equipment efficiency and well, a lot more than you probably want to read about now. This translates into up-to-date information regarding available and cost-effective options for saving energy and saving you money.

Beyond saving money, every Diamante Custom Homes Energy Analysis Report considers humidity control, air quality and the general health and comfort of the environment within the structure. After all, living in a healthy environment with consistent comfort is really what you want for you and your family.

The largest factors contributing to discomfort in the home are the humidity levels in the summer and inconsistent hot and cold spots throughout the structure. We solve this by correctly matching and sizing your HVAC system to an airtight home to maintain a guaranteed relative humidity level between 35 and 50% (when the HVAC system is running).

We can virtually eliminate those undesirable hot and cold spots by properly positioning your home’s duct work while accounting for the number and type of windows and the physical position of your home and its surrounding environment. It is critical to have the HVAC system properly designed to maintain ideal humidity levels or you run the risk of experiencing a home that is too dry (resulting in baking the paint and drying the caulk), or too wet (resulting in window condensation, mold’s ideal environment).  Simply put, we devote a lot of time and research to a system that truly works.  So do not just take our word for the LIFETIME energy guarantee we offer- see it in writing!!  If you would like to know more about our proprietary Design/Build process that emphasizes your budget and green building requests back 100% by a Energy Star Certification call us now 210-341-6430.  Or if you are busy right this moment have us get back to you promptly!

Energy Star Certified Since 1992

What makes Diamante Custom Homes different?
Our Energy Star Certified homes are independently verified to be at least 30% more energy efficient than a typical new home and 50% more energy efficient than a typical existing resale home. These savings are based on heating, cooling & hot water energy use and are achieved through a combination of:

High performance windows

Controlled air infiltration with Mechanically Engineered HVAC System

Upgraded heating and air conditioning systems

Tight duct systems and Upgraded water-heating equipment

Diamante’s Energy Star Certified new homes achieve their energy savings through a variety of reliable and established technologies and building practices.  Our Energy Star Certified homes feature tighter construction than that of homes built even just a few years ago. Tighter house construction can improve the energy efficiency, air quality, longer lasting HVAC systems, and overall comfort of your home by eliminating unwanted drafts.

What is specifically done to our homes to make them Energy Star Certified?
Green building is accomplished by increasing the energy efficiency of a home through Tighter Air Ducts, Cutting Edge Insulation, Higher Performance Windows, and Energy Efficient Heating & Cooling Equipment.

Why buy a Diamante Custom Homes Energy Star Certified home?
We are able to offer you increased value through lowering your utility bills and maintenance costs, better comfort, durability & quality, and a better indoor environment.  We focus on increasing inspections and higher quality assurance.

Through tighter home construction we can offer you:

Improved comfort – reducing drafts, noise, and moisture.

Improved indoor air quality – keeping dust, pollen, car exhaust, and insects out of the home.

Lower costs – reduces escape of conditioned air.

Did I mention our LIFETIME energy bill guarantee.  By a combined effort of building your home to the highest efficiency possible and mechanically engineering our HVAC systems, we offer every Diamante client a lifetime energy bill guarantee.  An energy bill of a typical 3000 square foot home with our guarantee is roughly $65 per month.  Contact one of our senior staff at 210-341-6430 or just have us get back to you shortly!

Metrostudy’s  Vice President, US Central Division, Jack Inselmann provided some pretty pleasing news at this year’s San Antonio Housing Forecast.

After a big slide down and a few years in the doldrums, area home builders appear to be heading toward better times.

Home builders are expected to start at least 10 percent more homes in 2012 than they did last year — the first double-digit bump for the industry since the 2006 market peak and subsequent downturn. And the Eagle Ford Shale play in South Texas could provide more opportunity for the local real estate industry.

It’s welcome news for builders, who hit a high of more than 19,000 home starts in 2006, then faced a painful five-year contraction and bottoming.

Although the housing market in San Antonio and other Texas cities weathered the recession better than just about anywhere else, it hasn’t been fun.

“It’s better than you think,” Jack Inselmann vice president of the U.S. Central Division of the housing research firm Metrostudy, told more than 500 builders, developers, bankers and other real estate professionals Friday.

Inselmann spoke at the Greater San Antonio Builders Association’s annual forecast breakfast at the Omni San Antonio Hotel, saying the recovery started in 2011, albeit at a glacial pace that “was almost invisible to the naked eye.”

The 2 percent improvement in building starts in 2011, when builders started 6,843 homes, should be trumped this year. And — barring some outside economic disaster — the good times should keep rolling from there.

Just like the proverbial “chicken and egg” question, “Which comes first?” is a question that confuses some people, but must be answered before you start the custom, home building process.  While the question may seem obvious, it is important to know the right answer to avoid problems from the beginning.  The architect comes first, right?  Not so fast! Stay with me….

Some people put the cart before the horse and in all the excitement, get ahead of themselves.  You thought that you had done it all right.  You have a set of plans, a sparkle in your eye, and a skip in your step because you have the plans to your dream home.

During the last several months, you have spent countless hours dreaming about your new home and holding meetings with your architect.  You went through revision after revision until late in the evenings.  You’ve worked tirelessly to make every room just right- giving instruction upon instruction to your architect about each room.  You have the latest trends in low voltage lighting and cutting edge insulation.

At last you are ready to find a builder. You are so excited- you have finished your plans and are now ready to build. You can see it, you can even taste it.  And then the moment of truth arrives.  You are ready to talk to a builder and get him started, but here was the problem.  The actual cost to build the house- that you had labored over so many hours, over so many months- ends up costing 75% more to build than you expected.

How did this happen? Well- you asked the architect and he gave you his estimate of what it would cost.  That’s what you had based your plans on-The architect’s estimate.  Here in lies the problem.  Architects are not trained in doing cost estimates.  If only you had known the importance of which came first, the builder- not the architect.

If you are in this predicament, give Diamante Custom Homes a call.  We have assembled a team of the top architects in Texas that know our Design/Build process intimately.  We go through a thought process to match you with an architect that best fits your project.  We work together with you to ensure your vision comes to life on budget.  We give you a cost analysis upon every revision to the plans.  When we are done with the design, you will know exactly how much it will cost to build- no surprises.  We truly know what it takes to achieve a hassle free custom home building experience. So contact us now to get started.  Now has never been a better time to build the house of your dreams.

See if Design/Build will work for you?

The traditional process of building a custom home involves going to an architect/designer, designing plans, and then hand selecting a few builders to get a quote for building their plans.

Every client including you, has a budget they want to stick to.  Whether that budget is $400,000 or over $4 million, there still remains a budget.  Did you know that 9 times out of 10, the bid to build comes in over budget for clients who use this approach? What more is that 50% of those who chose this route end up not building at all.  They end up buying a resale home that they have decided to settle for because they just cannot take any more over budget news.

What happens when your plans go over budget?  You have hand selected 3-5 builders with a solid reputation yet they are quoting you a price to build that is $50,000-$100,000 over what you had expected to pay.  This can be a real head scratch-er because after all you told your architect/designer what your budget was.  Next you will spend more time sending your plans out to various builders with the hopes that one of them will arrive at your budget.  Or you will have to pay even more money to go back to the drawing board with your architect/designer.

How do you know if your plans are going over budget? Let me rephrase that question.  How do you keep your plans on budget? Diamante Custom Homes has an approach different than the traditional design-bid-build approach.  We take the bidding out and use the design-build approach.  We have refined this process over the course of 20 years and have built a team of architects/designers around us to do one thing.  That one thing is staying on budget- which takes to hassle out of the equation.  This way when we are done designing your plans, there are no surprises.  We have put time and money into a process that works- it is not meant for you to have to go back to the drawing board when we are done!

We have analyzed everything!  If you would like to know more about our streamlined process that saves precious time and thousands of dollars, click here.  You can also call and speak to one of our senior staff 210-341-6430.

Walk-Out Basement Foundation Stages

A few months back I wrote a post in regards to the Walk-out basement concept that we have refined over the years.  It created a lot of buzz and ever since I have had numerous requests to build this type of concept.  A few weeks ago I was invited out to a prospective clients property to see if this concept would work on their property.  Since then we have started designing plans that uniquely fit their property’s challenges.

The picture attached is another Walk-Out basement design for our clients in Helotes, TX.  This client had a challenging lot that not only sloped from front to back, but also sloped to the right side of the property.  There are numerous benefits to this type of design that not only include a greater energy efficiency and views from both levels, but have a asthetically pleasing look to the back of the home- not just a quick and dirty 20 foot foundation.  As mentioned in an earlier post, we can put game rooms, bath rooms, garages, and laundry rooms down stairs.

This particular Walk-Out basement foundation was done in 3 pours.  It is important to note that some design only require 2 pours.  The additional pour is because of the nature of the work involved and the water proofing of the vertical wall.  Both the 2 pour foundations and the 3 pour foundations are strategically engineered for the longevity of the structure.  In engineering the foundation, all portions of the sub-floor and height of the framing members have been carefully considered.

At Diamante Custom Homes, we are seeing this type of design becoming increasingly popular in the Texas hill country- utilizing the hilly terrain to its benefit.  If you would like to see how this concept could ultimately work for you give me a call to set up a FREE low pressure consultation or click here to have on of our senior staff get back to you promptly.

Time To Put Those Plans Into Action

Excerpts From JP Morgan Funds Market Insights
By Dr. David Kelly and David Lebovitz
Managing Director
Chief Market Strategist
J.P. Morgan Funds

~ While no one should understate the pain and destruction caused by the bursting of the housing bubble, it has had one undeniable effect: Across a wide range of measures, it has left the United States with its cheapest housing market in decades…

~ However, price is only part of the story. Economic malaise, bond market complacency and the active intervention of the Federal Reserve have reduced mortgage rates to their lowest level in modern history…     Read the full article

As the New Year begins this seems to be the most prevalent time that building plans kick into overdrive.  Whether you are scaling down or upgrading, as the article clearly states there has never been a better time to build that new custom home.  To schedule a free no obligation consultation give us a call or click here to have a member of our team get back with you promptly.