I have a little experience with them. We had put together a basic design of the house we wanted a few years ago, and we worked with Cretin for a while trying to get one of their standard designs sufficiently customized to match what we wanted. We got close, but we could never get the price in line with our budget--even with them going with their bottom-line trim / fixtures. The only significant point I can pass along is that Cretin's advertised "per square foot" price was really good, but the "secret" was that they included everything under roof--porches, garage, etc.--in their calculation. Obviously, that was instead of calculating the per-square-foot price based on just living area--which is what everyone else we dealt with used.

Ultimately, we ended up using a buddy of mine as our general contractor. He lined up all the subs, handled all the scheduling, and put us in our house almost a week before the agreed move-in date. Guy's name is Danny Gallman, and he's a fully licensed / insured / bonded / etc. contractor. I don't believe he did any of the actual labor on the job. He just cracked the whip on the subs and personally acted as the go-between when we (i.e., my wife) had issues with things like paint / stain colors. His subs were universally professional--no fly-by-night scam artists. My dad is a retired electrician, and he was pleased with the work done by the electrical and heating/air contractors. Another friend is a plumber, and he said that part of the job was "done right."

For his part, Danny was onsite at least once every day, and he was always available to us via text, email, and phone. We likely could have saved a few nickles by doing his job ourselves, but it would have taken twice as long and caused 100x more headaches. Danny was absolutely worth every penny we paid him.

In fact, a couple of years after the house was built, we decided to pour some extra concrete around the place. It was a couple of good-sized slabs, so I contacted two local subs and got turnkey estimates. I was about to pull the trigger on the lower-priced bid, but on a whim I called Danny to see if he may have another sub I could contact. Instead, he gave me a per square foot price of his own--a rate which significantly beat both of my earlier bids. I basically pointed to where we wanted the slabs, and he had some top-shelf guys come in and knock it out less than a week later.

His website is here, and I believe all his contact information and model homes are up-to-date.

FWIW, YMMV, YOLO, ETC.

1 ...

Report Post

Posted by Libertariantiger

Member since Nov 2012

981 posts

Posted on 1/12/15 at 8:07 am to FCP

I would not call a builder going on total sqft a "secret" or imply some sort of selling tactic. All new home builders I know go by total sqft or give you a bid. Used homes go by living and aprraisals figure living and give you a seperate line item for garages and shops. But most new homes go by totalking because they pay framers, concrete, electricians, etc etc on the total. You can't expect to walk in somewhere and expect to get a home with wrap around porches and a three bay garage for the same price as one with out.
Most are prices on about a 75/25 split living to non.

Page 1 2 3 4 5