You are right about TJH. I sold my last rental to TJH, full cash offer and match competitor prices, close with in 21 days.
They build fast and then sold them fast within 6-12 months.
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Thank you !! This is very helpful. Didn’t know about TJH! Has anyone here used them for building their house? How is their quality?
Not sure how their cost compares with other GC.
I do not think they are available for contract purpose. Based on my understanding, they buy good lots at cash offer, then get an approved plan for demo and rebuild. At that time, they list homes to find perspective buyers. Depending on buyers requirement, finish materials may vary (but not the approved plan). Once they are in contract, they build the home 6-9 months and handover the home.
They had 14 build plans previously, now they have 5 around bay area. Search redfin with keyword Thomas you will see this results
1429-Cherrydale-Dr-95125
1185-Husted-Ave-95125
1286-Mayette-Ave-95125
1945-Fallen-Leaf-Ln-94024
775-Edge-Ln-94024
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Wow! I didn’t realize they are not available for contract purpose. They highlight it so much on their website!
They do build on your homesite: Build on YOUR Homesite, Northern California, by TJH. It’s a newer offering, maybe within the last year or two.
My experience watching them build indicates they aren’t that quick. They are more along the 12-18 months timeframe for construction, but you have to add in the time to get entitlements.
I’m surprised they only match with no premium. You sold off your 1 story future primary?
@someone12 never used, but I know someone that lives in one and haven’t heard complaints. From the outside, their quality seems good. Their pricing is retail for that type of offering. If you don’t know what it costs, you should expect to pay retail.
They are available for it according to their website. I think the offering was a newer way to expand their business/grow revenue. From what I understand to buy one of their homes, you buy the lot from them and then have a separate build contract with them. From that point of view, it can make perfect sense to offer it to other homeowners. They just don’t make money going through the entitlement process.
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Thanks buddy. Very helpful. Can you pls explain what you mean by entitlement process? And, to be clear, yes I don’t know how much it would cost and I am willing to pay retail 
Entitlements = getting permits.
I wasn’t trying to be mean or anything. Trying to get the impression through that of course you can build for less if you squeeze someone or you cut out a layer or two. If you cut out a layer you are doing some of the work yourself. If you are squeezing someone, they can easily squeeze you back.
I have some experience, but it isn’t comparable to some of the other people on this forum.
Oh also, a great real estate agent and architect can be helpful here. If you share what neighborhoods you are looking at I can try to give you a better idea of who does work around there.
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You are so helpful. Hope other online forums were like this.
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I did not have money to build, finally sold off just break even price. I purposefully removed address, but you can make it out
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On to greener pastures!
Home looked originally like this
Recently, I visited that location,this lot can have 3200 sqft single story home for which I made all plans, paid $15000k architect fee, appx $5000 structural engineer, finally rolled back everything to get out break even cost (including the lawsuit I went through by this home lot).
It was almost 15 months before I was rushing to get out as I expected stock market crash. This home selling made me completely debt free. Of course, lawsuit hassle free from any tenants (no more tenants).
No more real estate investment, Happy life !
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@Elt1 , I read your posts and so am taking liberty of tagging you directly. Do you have any recent data on construction costs? Any comments on quality of Thomas James Homes?
I am looking for constructing a 3k sq ft 2-storied house 2 car garage in peninsula. Thanks for your help
This would be the range I suggest as well - including all the soft cost (not including your holding cost and your rental cost). Depending on where you want to build there might be different permitting process for 2 story - for example, in PA it will take much longer permitting process for 2 story house compared to single story.
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I think too low. In addition, many of my friends tried construction and struggled hard till the end. Unless you are experienced in that industry, you will face the same issue and will affect your time, efforts etc.
Since the market will likely offer nice home at better deal, why do not you look for a home near your choice and settle with a deal?
My realtor told me, not to buy a home and try to build.
She told this way to me “Buying land and building a home is not easy. Those are for people who has lavish money and time, they can do. You and your wife are techy people, and it is hard for you. If I understand you, jil, If you still buy a home, you will eventually sell it without building a home.”
I still wonder how much she judged me. I tried, bought two homes, to demolish and rebuild, finally sold them and settled with existing home. Both are sold to builders and now they constructed nice home.
Of course, the current primary is beyond my imagination, too good for my construction knowledge level.
See how the new builder built it.
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Just to throw it out there, how about modular/prefab construction? This was a modular build in the peninsula that caught my eye early in my “Everything Prefab” thread. Definitely more modern looking than the house above but I thought it was pretty nice. Unfortunately, the links to this story/home are no longer working.
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They should really compare to 2019 inventory levels. 2020 and 2021 were anomalies due to covid. Inventory was historically low. That would be a lot less sensational and get fewer clicks thus money.
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This might be my chance to pick up a small house in Vegas cheap to join some of my retiree friends there. A home rotation of Malaysia (maybe Singapore if I find the money), Vegas and Bay Area would be perfect!
Illustrative example of why the YoY stuff is either done out of ignorance or intentional fear mongering. It should be much higher than pre-covid levels to make up for two years of low inventory. Instead, we’re still down huge compared to pre covid.
I don’t like the framing of those infographics charts either, but the key insight there is that there is a lot of variations between regions. Looking at national stats won’t capture those.
For example, here’s Austin inventory. It’s now back to pre-Covid level, a sharp rise this year:
Phoenix is the same:
San Francisco and San Jose inventory didn’t see the crazy Covid dip like the above boom towns, and also didn’t see any spike up this year either. Range bound the whole time.
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