Compare South Carolina custom home builders before you sign

The words are not regulated, so builders use them loosely; here is what they usually mean. A production builder owns the lots, offers a fixed set of plans with limited option packages, and builds many of the same house in a subdivision; you choose from a menu. A semi-custom builder starts from its own library of plans and lets you move walls, change elevations and pick finishes within a structural envelope it already knows how to build. A true custom builder builds a one-of-a-kind house from plans drawn for you, often on a lot you already own, and the contract is usually cost-plus or a negotiated fixed price rather than a list price.

Each model trades something. Production is fastest and cheapest per square foot because of repetition. Semi-custom gives most of the look of custom at a known price. Custom gives control over everything and asks the most of you. The Related searches on this site show buyers asking for "affordable custom" builders in Greenville, Charleston and Mount Pleasant; most of those companies are semi-custom, which is not a criticism. Ask which model a builder actually runs before you compare bids.

An allowance is a placeholder dollar amount in the contract for an item not yet selected: lighting fixtures, tile, countertops, appliances, landscaping, and often site work. If your choices cost more than the allowance, you pay the difference; if less, you get a credit. A change order is a written amendment that changes the scope, price or schedule after the contract is signed, whether you asked for it or a site condition forced it. Together they are the usual reason a finished custom home costs more than the signed number.

Protect yourself at contract time. Ask the builder to list every allowance with its amount and what it covers (material only, or material and labor). Compare each allowance to a real quote from the supplier the builder uses; a low allowance makes a bid look cheaper than it is. Require that every change order be written, priced, signed by both parties before the work is done, and state its effect on the completion date. Keep a running total. None of this is required by South Carolina law, which is why it has to be in your contract.

A fixed-price (lump sum) contract states one price for a defined scope; the builder keeps savings and absorbs overruns, and anything outside the scope is a change order. A cost-plus contract bills you the actual cost of labor, materials and subcontracts plus a fee, either a percentage or a fixed amount; you see every invoice and carry the risk of overruns. A cost-plus contract with a guaranteed maximum price (GMP) caps your exposure while keeping the open book. In South Carolina custom work, cost-plus is common for one-off houses where the plans are still moving, and fixed price is common for semi-custom builders working from plans they have built before.

Ask these questions. On cost-plus: what counts as cost (does the builder's supervisor, truck or office overhead get billed?), what the fee percentage applies to, how often you get invoices and backup, and whether you can audit. On fixed price: what the allowances are, how change orders are priced, and whether unknown site conditions are excluded. Your construction lender will usually want a fixed price or a GMP because it must set a loan amount.

South Carolina taxes real property on an assessed value that is a percentage of fair market value, times the local millage. Under section 12-43-220(c) a legal residence that the owner occupies as a domicile, with up to five contiguous acres, is assessed at four percent of fair market value; other real property, including a house you do not occupy, is assessed at six percent under 12-43-220(e). The four percent ratio is not automatic: the owner must apply to the county assessor before the first penalty date for the tax year in which eligibility is first claimed, sign a certification under penalty of perjury, and the burden of proof is on the owner. Renting the house for more than seventy-two days in a year loses it.

For a new house, section 12-37-3140 adds the fair market value of improvements and additions to the property's value, and 12-37-3130 defines those to include new construction; the fifteen percent cap on reappraisal increases does not apply to new improvements, and under subsection (E) the added value is first taxed in the following tax year. Section 12-43-240 requires the county to send the assessor a copy of every building permit within ten days, so the assessor will know. Millage differs by county and school district, so the editor does not rank counties; your county auditor's office can estimate the bill for a given value.

Usually not the standard form. South Carolina's Residential Property Condition Disclosure Act (Title 27, Chapter 50) requires an owner selling a one-to-four-unit residence to give the buyer a written disclosure statement before the contract is signed, covering water and sewer, structural components, systems, wood-destroying insects, zoning and code matters, environmental hazards and homeowners association governance. Section 27-50-30(10) exempts transfers involving the first sale of a dwelling never inhabited, which is why a builder selling a brand-new spec house, or a custom house built under a purchase agreement, typically gives no condition disclosure. If you own the lot and hire a builder under a construction contract, there is no sale of real property at all, so the Act does not apply.

What you get instead is the contract, the plans, the permits and inspection record, the certificate of occupancy, the written warranty, and whatever the builder tells you in writing. Keep all of it; when you sell later you will owe the disclosure form yourself and the Act (section 27-50-65) makes an owner who knowingly gives false information liable for actual damages and attorney's fees.

The editor does not print an average, because builders' own schedules vary too much by county, lot and house to be useful as a single number. The timeline has three parts. Before the permit: design, engineering, lender approval, septic evaluation, zoning and any HOA or OCRM review, which can take as long as the construction. Permit processing: Greenville County cites a five-day processing period as of its current notice; other counties did not publish one. Construction: from footings to certificate of occupancy, a custom house typically runs most of a year, with the final weeks of trim, cabinets, countertops and inspections taking longer than buyers expect. Production houses on prepared lots are faster because the plan, the crews and the suppliers repeat.

Ask each builder for a written schedule with milestones and the assumptions behind it (material lead times, crew availability, weather days), and for the dates its last three houses were permitted and received a certificate of occupancy. That record is the only forecast worth anything. "Fastest possible" is the wrong question; the right one is whether the builder has finished houses on the dates it promised.

South Carolina builds year-round. Winters are mild enough in most of the state that foundations and framing continue, with occasional freeze delays in the Upstate. The wet periods that matter are summer thunderstorms, which stall excavation and concrete, and tropical systems from roughly June through November, which can shut a coastal site for days and, in a bad year, pull subcontractors toward storm repair. Starting site work in late winter or early spring puts the foundation in before the summer rains and gets the roof on before hurricane season peaks; that is the conventional advice, and it is only advice.

The bigger lever is the pre-construction calendar. A septic evaluation queue, a permit submission and a lender's builder approval each take weeks you cannot compress, so the best time to start is when those are done, not when the weather looks good. Ask the builder how many weather days its schedule assumes for your county and season, and how it handles a storm closure. The editor did not find a primary source that ranks months, so treat this as experience rather than data.

Do it in this order. Licence: confirm an Active residential builder licence in the LLR lookup under the individual's name, and if the company is an LLC or corporation, a Certificate of Authorization with that person as resident licensee in responsible charge. Discipline: search LLR's public Board Orders and the clerk of court index in the builder's home county. Insurance: ask for general liability and workers' compensation certificates and call the agent. References: ask for the last three completed houses, not the best three, and the permit and certificate-of-occupancy dates for each, then call the owners and ask what went wrong and how it was handled. Subcontractors and suppliers: ask who they are and whether they are paid current; a lumber yard that will not take the builder's orders is a loud signal.

Then read the contract before you fall for the model home: the allowances, the draw schedule, the change-order process, the warranty, the completion definition and what happens if either side defaults. Membership in a Home Builders Association chapter shows the builder is engaged in the trade but is voluntary and is not a licence check. No star rating on this site, or any site, replaces the steps above.

The common ones: no licence number offered, or a number that belongs to someone no longer with the company; a request for a large deposit before plans or permits exist; a price quoted per square foot with no drawings; allowances that are far below the real cost of the items; a refusal to put the draw schedule and change-order process in the contract; reluctance to provide insurance certificates or references from recent, ordinary projects; suppliers or subcontractors who mention being paid late; a suggestion to skip a permit or an inspection; and pressure to sign today to "hold pricing." One more that is specific to South Carolina: a builder who does not know what a Notice of Project Commencement or a lien waiver is has not been protecting its previous clients from liens.

None of these alone proves a problem, and good builders are busy and can be slow to return calls. The pattern matters. If the builder's answers to the licence, insurance and reference questions are complete and verifiable, most of the rest can be negotiated in the contract. If those three are evasive, stop there.

South Carolina does not prescribe the contents of a residential construction contract, so everything protective has to be written in. At minimum: the parties, with the builder's licence number and the resident licensee for a firm; the plans and specifications by date and revision, attached; the price and the model (fixed, cost-plus with fee, or GMP); every allowance, listed with amount and what it covers; the draw schedule and what each draw requires (inspection, invoices, lien waivers); the change-order procedure, in writing, priced and signed before work; the start date, the substantial-completion date and how delays are handled; what counts as complete (certificate of occupancy plus a signed punch list); a holdback until the punch list is done; the warranty terms and claim procedure; insurance each party carries; who files the Notice of Project Commencement; dispute resolution; and what happens if either side defaults.

A South Carolina construction attorney reviewing the contract before signing is the cheapest insurance in the whole project. Builders often use a form from their trade association or their own; both are negotiable, and a builder who will not discuss changes is telling you how change orders will go later.