If you’re considering building a custom home on Lake Keowee, Total Quality Home Builders & Waterfront Properties offers a transparent waterfront building process designed to ensure you’re confident with your choice. It’s a process we’re proud to say is unlike that of other builders.
In fact, because we’re more than custom home contractors alone, we offer turnkey services as licensed Realtors and contractors, too. That means Total Quality will help you find the right piece of land on which to build your dream home, your designer will give your home a style that’s a reflection of you, and your financial advisor will help you work within your budget and stay on track. The entire process, from selecting land to the final walk-through, can be handled by us.
Here’s how our custom waterfront building process works.
Research Phase
When we first meet to introduce ourselves to you, we want to make sure you feel we’re the best custom builder for your vision. We take great pride in the up-front work we do to ensure we’re completely transparent from the start and that you’re not met with any surprises along the way. We begin the waterfront building process by arming you with important information.
That information includes documentation from our current builds, including their budgets and plans, so you get a good understanding of how we work and what the budget and timeline look like. We also provide you with our portfolio and a list of 20-30 of our clients, which you’re free to call and interview. Our goal is to make you feel comfortable, and once you are confident in our capabilities, we know you’ll be ready to move into the planning phase with us. After all, if you’ve seen our work and talked to our clients, we know you’ll be at ease moving forward on your custom home.
From here, the steps for building your home become much more concrete. We’ll establish your budget, create a Good Faith Estimate, and then the fun work begins.
Ideally, the first step in the custom waterfront building process is to contact Total Quality to help you find a home site. Have you already purchased the land? That’s no problem! TQ will meet you wherever you are in the process and take it from there.
Our waterfront property specialist will meet with you to walk the lot. To understand the best location for your home, we’ll assess the topography, determine the ideal home site and view, establish the locations of the driveway and septic system, and offer suggestions and estimates for proposed building costs to begin building that Good Faith Estimate.
A current survey, which is required by the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) for the septic system and county for a building permit, is ordered, with all corners marked and setbacks identified. Since lakefront homes rarely begin with flat land, TQ recommends a topographical survey depending on the grade of the site. This will assist in determining excavation estimates and a better determination of the overall cost when working on your Good Faith Estimate.
TQ works with you to determine a design and floor plan that fits your needs and meets your allocated investment. Options for your plan may include one of the following:
• Purchase online architectural plans
• Meet with the TQ architect for the original custom plan
• Meet with the architect or draftsman for modification of a new or existing plan
We also work closely with your Homeowners Association to ensure plans meet their requirements.
Our selection coordinator meets with you to determine exterior and interior selections and finishes for your home. Our waterfront building process is proven to optimize the timeliness of the build process, lead to a more accurate cost, minimize stress, and maximize the quality of your home when the majority of the selections are made upfront. We provide you with a preliminary shopping budget per category, and selections are compiled in real-time to ensure we’re sticking to our Good Faith Estimate. Even our vendors work with complete transparency, so you’re never met with unexpected surprises.
TQ requests a surveyor to overlay the proposed footprint of the house floor plan on the topographical survey, then discuss with you the ideal placement of the home to maximize views and determine potential locations for the septic tank, driveway, landscaping, etc. Because our goal is total transparency, we won’t stake the home until you’ve approved the plan.
TQ recommends under-brushing the area of the potential home site, allowing for easy access for DHEC septic location inspection, staking, and flagging of the home site, etc.
Total Quality Home Builders & Waterfront Properties will apply for a DHEC Septic Tank Permit as required by state government.
TQ meets with you on-site to evaluate the proposed home layout on the lot for concurrence and/or final approval.
The final estimated cost to construct is established for discussion and approval by all parties.
TQ handles the submission of all application requirements that the HOA/ARC/ARB Committees would request.
Finally, we’ll meet with you to discuss financial funding arrangements and to go over the TQ accounting procedures. Because we believe in total transparency, there will never be surprises when it comes to financial details. You’ll see how your money is spent, as it’s being spent, and a third-part accountant signs off on any spends each week to make sure there is oversight.
