SUN Custom Homes is an Oklahoma City custom home builder with more than a decade of experience. Their true passion is designing in a wide variety of styles, sizes, and price ranges. Their slogan is

Affordable Homes of Distinction

They are dedicated to good design, and bring vast knowledge of old world style and craftsmanship learned from extensive European travel to your custom home. They are a state Certified Professional Builder, and use experienced craftsmen and suppliers in the construction of your home. They use Energy Star rated construction for “green building.”

This living room by SUN Custom Homes will have you snuggling up to the stone fireplace.

The SUN Custom Homes team leads your through, step by step, all the way through making sure every decision works for you without letting you get lost in the process. There are many decisions to make when building a custom home, but the SUN team will guide you through and make the whole experience easy and enjoyable. Whatever you dream is, whatever your budget, the SUN team is there to listen and make it happen, giving you a beautiful, truly custom and well-built home at your price.

For more information call (405) 641-2154 or fill out the Request Info form which you can find in the upper-right corner of their website.

L.R. Hill Custom Builders is a custom home builder in the Virginia Beach and Chesapeake Bay area. This award-winning company is dedicated to quality design and superior craftsmanship, as indicated by their numerous awards.

Carlisle House IV

L.R. Hill’s specialty is combining classic design with contemporary finishes so your new home is timelessly stylish and full of character. They offer many options to give your home the feel you want: you can have beachy hardplank wood siding, or traditional brick at no extra charge in their Hanbury Woods community. The Carlisle House IV in the East Beach Luxury Townhomes community is a nod to historic Georgian-style architecture, with a brick exterior, white multi-pane windows, and porches over the entry with classical columns. The dormer windows bring character to an interesting third floor space in each townhome which has a bedroom, full bath, and flex space.

Victorian-Style house by L.R. Hill

You might not believe at first glance that this is a new house–it could have come straight out of a Victorian builder’s handbook! The wood siding and wraparound porch with a carefully crafted hand rail are delightful details that give this home a cozy, traditional style.

For more information about L.R. Hill’s custom homes, you can reach Michelle Irwin, their Client Relations Manager, at (757) 340-0530.

With the improvements in technology in recent years, it’s no surprise that 90% of homebuyers begin their search online (and 52% of them end up buying a home they found online!). You’ve probably heard of apps like Zillow and Trulia, which allow buyers to search for homes in a specific geographic area, number of bedrooms, price range, and a number of other qualifiers. Besides applications that help buyers find you, there are many apps out there that can help you develop your business internally.

TurboViewer allows you to upload CAD files directly to your device and access them at any time. Switch bulky paper plans for this easy to use and lightning fast app. You can pan, zoom, and rotate through 3D and 2D CAD plans on your device, as well as email copies of a custom home to your clients and co-workers.

Home Builder Pro Calcs includes calculator functions for pricing and construction processes like electrical engineering, framing, flooring, walls, ceilings, roofing, and heating and cooling. There’s even a map estimator tool that will help you determine yard size, fence length, and more. Along with custom building and pricing estimates, you can use this app to help estimate the number of hours it will take to complete portions of a building project. This app is incredibly useful for builders looking for a tool to help them construct homes more efficiently and with exactness. Over 230 customers have rated this app and give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Keep your business organized with the Toodledo to-do list application. This user friendly app allows you to create, prioritize, and rearrange organized lists of items to accomplish. Due dates, pop-up alarms, timers, a security passcode, and additional details set this app apart from the rest. A simple user interface makes Toodledo a must-have for custom homebuilders looking to get organized and keep track of multiple projects and tasks in one place.

In addition to Toodledo, Pronto Forms can help you organize tasks that have forms associated with them. Identify sites where you’ll need to use a form by address, GPS location, and type of inspection. This app is perfect for helping you track work order forms and keeping track of much of the paperwork associated with building a home.

It’s easy to keep track of changes customers want with My Measures & Dimensions PRO. This app is perfect for those smaller tweaks and projects customers may want after each walk-through. Simply take a snapshot and add text, arrows, and other reminders to the photo for easy-to-remember fixes. Save paper and messy sketchbooks for another time, this app will help you look professional and organized.

There are many apps out there that can help you grow your business, but we think these ones are some of the most important. Leave us a comment with your favorite building-related apps!

The 2012 Best in American Living Awards are here! Get in by the application deadline of September 4th in order to have your custom homes on show.

The NAHB Design Committee sponsors this award program once a year. BALA is all about excellence in the real estate industry, putting spotlights on the most creative and innovative projects from across the nation. The awards are open to builders, designers, architects, remodelers, interior designers, land planners, and developers. We definitely wouldn’t want any of our custom builders to miss out on this opportunity. Your work deserves it. Do you have your thumb on the pulse of up-and-coming trends? Do your custom homes reflect the latest fashions or serious artistry of the home building industry? Then don’t miss out on this real opportunity.

Applications are due Sept 4th, but there is a late fee deadline extending through September 18th if you need. Judging takes place in October and entrants are notified by or before December 1st. Winners will be announced at the 2013 International Builder’s Show in Las Vegas.

Along with their announcement, winners are offered all sorts of special features. Be showcased in Builder Magazine, featured throughout the year in publications from around the country, including NAHB’s publications and social media outlets, and be posted to Builder Online and the NAHB site for the next year. You can check out past winners at the BALA Awards site.

For eligibility requirements check out the NAHB page. There are several categories in which to apply from, with seven primary categories further divided into a total of 39 awards. One winner in each of the nine geographic regions will also receive their Best in Region award, which you’re automatically entered into after applying. These primary categories include Single-Family, Multifamily, Remodeling, Community, Community Facility, Specialty, and Interior Design. Do you think single family or specialty custom homes best reflect your work? Keep in mind that there is also the Community of the Year, Room of the Year, and House of the Year – definitely important for you.

Any member of the project team can enter. The competition is open nationwide. Let us know if you decide to enter, and we’ll feature you on the blog! And the best of luck to all our custom builders.

Really good news for our custom home builders: home builder confidence has hit a five year high. The NAHB reported that its housing market index rose two points to a total of 37 this month, the highest level since February 2007.

This is the fourth consecutive month the index has jumped, and the results for August were well above expectations. The housing market’s stabilization has been one of the most positive developments in our economy in recent months. It has, after all, been one of its weakest points after the housing bubble burst. As a custom home builder, how have you been taking advantage of the improved market? Have you seen a noticeable improvement in your leads or sales?

The Wall Street Journal reports, “Spending on home construction, home improvements and other parts of real-estate transactions have added to economic growth for five straight quarters, accounting for 0.22 percentage point of the 1.5% growth rate in the first quarter.” NAHB Chairman Barry Rutenberg was also quoted as saying, “”From the builder’s perspective, current sales conditions, sales prospects for the next six months and traffic of prospective buyers are all better than they have been in more than five years. While there is still much room for improvement, we have come a long way from the depths of the recession and the outlook appears to be brightening.”

It’s true that this record is still below historic levels. A reading above 50 means more builders view home buying conditions as good rather than as poor. The index hasn’t recorded that positive since April 2006; at the height of our housing bubble reads rose to the high 60’s and even low 60’s. But just because it’s not the best ever doesn’t mean this isn’t very good news. Every component of the index rose in August, from home builder expectations for sale rising one point and and traffic from potential buyers rising three points. Traffic from current sales conditions did likewise.

The index was based on a survey of 478 builders and results did differ regionally. The index grew by nine points here in the Midwest and two in the south. Unfortunately it declined nine points in the Northeast and three in the West. Our custom home builders in the these areas, have you still been able to make good sales? If other builders aren’t as confident, that may actually give you a leg up in the competition. And for our custom home builders in the Midwest and South, it’s good to see that sales and interest are so high!

A busier market means we really need to focus on grabbing those eyes of home buyers before they look elsewhere. How are you focusing your internet marketing campaign in a sunnier economy? Is your website thriving, blogging up to date, and search traffic strong? Remember that a listing here as well as on other large directories like Top Ten Builders.com or Homebuilders.com will create leads through or site and help improve the search relevance of your own site. As always if you have any questions about your home builder internet marketing, we’d love to hear from you. We wish the best of luck to our custom home builders!

The housing market is steadily improving, the NAHB reports, which is great news for our custom builders. According to their newest IMI (Improving Market Index), 80 areas across 32 states are listed as an improving market. This includes 75 markets that retained their place on the list, as well as five new ones. Nine fell from the list, primarily due to slight movements in house prices.

If you’re a custom builder in Texas there’s very good news, as Lubbock was one of the five improved markets. So too were Miami and Palm Bay, Florida, Hinesville, Georgia, and Terre Haute, Indiana. See a full list of the IMI here. The IMI is designed to track housing markets showing signs of improving economic health, and to do so measures three sets of independent monthly data. Analyzed are the employment growth from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, house price appreciation from Freddie Mac, and housing permit growth from the U.S. Census Bureau. The NAHB uses this latest available data to create their list of improving markets; in order to be included, a metropolitan area must see improvement in all three measures for at least six months.

NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe said, “The fact that we continue to see a strong core of metros showing up on the improving list each month adds to the growing evidence that the emerging housing recovery has a solid foundation on which to build as housing returns to its traditional role of driving economic growth.” Have you seen an improvement in the custom homes market in your area? Do you find that your  custom home buyers are feeling more confident as the general economy improves?

Kurt Pfotenhauer, vice chairman at First American Title Insurance Company, also said in the article, “With nearly one quarter of all U.S. metros currently designated as improving housing markets, there is growing recognition among consumers that now is an opportune time to consider a home purchase.” This is very encouraging news and we’re sure our custom builders will take full advantage of it. If you have any personal insight into your area’s improving market, we’d love to hear about it.

80 metros are listed as improving housing markets this June. Which is good news for our custom home builders! According to the National Association of Home Builders/First American Improving Markets Index (IMI), the list includes 28 new entrants plus at least one representative from 31 different states.

The IMI identifies areas that have improved in employment, housing permits, and housing pricing for at least six months. A metropolitan area must see improvement in all three areas for at least those six months before being included in the index. For this month’s index 52 areas held their spots, with 48 slipping from the list but 28 being added. This includes our custom home builders in Dallas, as well as Grand Junction, Colorado and Knoxville, Alabama as notable areas.

“Though today’s IMI reflects a decline in the number of improving markets from May, the list continues to show significant geographic diversity, with 31 states represented and roughly one quarter of all U.S. metros included,” said NAHB Chairman Barry Rutenberg, a home builder from Gainesville, Fla. Noted NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe added, “[T]he fact that multiple new areas are showing up on the list each month is encouraging, and highlights the degree to which local economic and job market conditions are what drive individual housing markets.” For more information, see the NAHB article here.

As the market improves, have you been seeing more interest in your custom homes? If you’re in one of those 80 metro areas – and if you’re not – it’s a good time to think about your custom home builder marketing. And whether you’re interested in a new website, a mobile site, or SEO, we can help you. Along with your listing here, have you considered a listing at Top Ten Builders? Right now we’re offering a double deal package; sign up for your listing Custom Builders and you can also start a listing on Top Ten for free! That’s for our ground pricing, a lowered cost for first-comers that you’ll be locked into regardless of price increases. Let us know if you’re interested.