COST TO BUILD · 2026
THE NUMBERS
What a foothill custom home really costs — published, not gated.
AN HONEST ACCOUNTING
Luxury is knowing your number before you begin.
Most builders make you trade your phone number for a price range. We publish ours: the same figures we quote across our twelve-town service area, the factors that move them, and how pre-construction planning turns a range into a line-item budget lenders fund against.
Every number below is a starting anchor for an unimproved foothill lot — your parcel, plan, and finishes make it precise. That precision is free: it is step one of our process.
STARTING ANCHORS · 2026
Three ways to build, three honest starting points
CUSTOM HOMES
from ~$1.2M
A fully custom foothill home starts around $1.2 million for roughly 2,300 square feet on an unimproved lot — designed from a blank page around your land and your life.
SEMI-CUSTOM HOMES
from ~$850K
Our nine ready-to-build plans — 2,030 sq ft to just under 3,800 sq ft, with optional attached ADU — start around $850,000 on an unimproved lot, and save $10,000–$25,000 in design fees plus months of time.
RENOVATIONS & ADDITIONS
from ~$150K
Whole-home remodels, additions, ADUs, and complete outdoor-living transformations generally begin around $150,000, scaling with scope.
WHAT MOVES THE NUMBER
The six factors behind every foothill budget
THE LAND ITSELF
Slope, soils, access, and rock are the biggest swing on any foothill budget. A steep or remote parcel can carry six figures of site work a gentle one never sees — which is why we evaluate land before you buy it.
WELLS, SEPTIC & UTILITIES
Municipal hookups or well-and-septic? Perc tests, well depth, and power runs move real money — we scope them in pre-construction, never mid-build.
FIRE-ZONE CONSTRUCTION
Chapter 7A ignition-resistant materials and sprinklers are line items most of our service area requires. Planned from the start, they cost far less than any retrofit.
SIZE & COMPLEXITY
Square footage sets the base, but complexity sets the pace — rooflines, ceiling heights, window walls, and how much of the plan is corners rather than straight runs.
FINISH LEVEL
The same floor plan can finish at meaningfully different budgets. Our real-time value engineering prices each selection as you design, so the finish level is a choice — never a surprise.
THE MARKET & THE MOMENT
Construction costs move with the market. We price against today's subcontractor bids and material realities — never last year's assumptions.
FROM RANGE TO REAL NUMBER
A published range gets you oriented. Pre-construction planning gets you certainty: we price your specific lot, design decisions in real time as you make them, and deliver a line-item budget alongside ready-to-build plans — the exact package construction lenders appraise and approve.
"90% of the success of a construction project is determined by the quality of the pre-construction planning."
Mike Sherman · President
FAQ
Foothill building costs, answered
FREE COST GUIDE
What does it cost to build a custom home in the California foothills?
The honest answer is "it depends" — so we wrote a guide that explains exactly what drives the difference. Lot conditions, finish selections, square footage, site work, design choices: all the variables, with real numbers from real foothill projects.
We don't share your information. One email delivers the guide, then a monthly note with planning and budget insight. Unsubscribe anytime.
READY TO START?
Let's talk about your project.
Tell us about your land, your timeline, and what you're imagining. We'll come back to you within one business day with the right next step.
Or call (916) 626-6000