RLA Custom Homes

Great home builders. They can build a home of your dreams!
Mar 26th, 2022

Our RLA home was built in 2018. While we do think our home is well built, for the most part, we have already had some very expensive issues. The most frustrating and expensive being the water pressure regulator from the city water meter to the house. Our house is 3 years old and should not have had this leak already. Plumber said there is a copper line that goes into the house but when they got to the street it looked like they ran out of line and instead of using the material they are supposed to for the water regulator fitting, they used PVC, which caused a very expensive leak (between the fix and water bills, not to mention being without water for days). Our home is beautiful and there are other parts of the house that were done well but this was a slap in the face and caused us concern for what other issues there may be underlying.
Mar 17th, 2022

RLA was an amazing home building experience. Randy and Bob are great guys. They are honest and straitforward.
Sep 17th, 2016

I'm not really sure what to cover in a review about a builder, but... Here we go...We were in the market for a home for 2-3 years before we realized that building a house from scratch was not going to be significantly different in price from finding a house according to our (read: my wife's very specific) requirements. And RLA Custom Homes was the builder we kept coming back to over the course of 2.5(ish) years; there was, I dunno, something sturdy about everything in their model homes. RLA (comprised of two brothers: Randy & Robert) has been in the house building business for several decades now, but no one seems to really know about them. In discussions had with them, the brothers mentioned that they've generally kept their builds limited to a small number (when we were building with them, they were only doing something like 15 houses a year). Compare that to... I dunno, Taber or Home Creations; builders that put out what feels like 200 houses each month? The brothers mentioned that they notice a decline in build quality if they aren't able keep an eye on the sub-contractors' work. Also, they tend to find sub-contractors that they like and then won't use anyone else, so there's not a lot of churn-and-burn happening as a result. In fact, when our realtor called Randy, he kinda blew her off, and we had to follow-up to make sure he knew we were serious. What I appreciated the most through the whole process was their honesty and work-ethic: e.g. 1: during our final walk-through, Robert pointed out a scratch on the master bathroom counter. It was the the most insignificant of scratches that we'd have never noticed had he not pointed it out to us. But he apologized and said that something heavy may have been placed on the counter and it cut into it or something, so they were going to replace the entire counter-top before closing the next day. And they did just that.e.g. 2: any upgrades we added, the prices were very reasonable, often being at cost or with a slight markup. We only knew this because we asked other builders about the same upgrades, and the pricing was ridiculous in comparison. Additionally, the brothers were really good about telling us if they thought our design choices were going to turn into money sinks.e.g. 3: earlier this year, we had some significant damage happen to our house, so I reached out to the brothers for a contractor recommendation, and they sent someone out to fix the problem. The contractor we got sucked somethin' fierce, and I let Robert know as much. Robert himself came out and fixed what the contractor failed to complete. e.g. 4: I decided to do some preventive annual maintenance on our HVAC recently; the HVAC dude was so impressed with the quality of the work in the house that he mentioned it several times before he left. And we've consistently heard similar things from other contractors who've been in our house for one reason or another over the last few years. e.g. 5: I had taken a day off from work during the middle of the week to get some stuff done around the house. Robert noticed my garage door was open, and texted me to make sure I knew about it. The little things matter...e.g. 6-20: any time I've had questions, or needed some house-related help, they've responded quickly or stopped by and taken care of it themselves. For the first 1-2 years of me being a homeowner, I was hassling them frequently, and they were always pretty gracious about it. I leave them alone now. I'm sure they're appreciative of that.As far as design choices are concerned, they're pretty much able to do whatever you want. Their standard options don't try to be overly trendy, but they keep up with current trends at a reasonable rate; not so bleeding-edge that the houses will seem dated in about 5 years, but not so boring that the houses lack personality.We did notice that several of our design choices were incorporated into RLA's future builds; stuff we had to pay extra for by the way (because they were considered upgrades), but now it looks like many of those things are standard. So, you're welcome for our excellent choices, RLA and future RLA homeowners... I know a great designer (furreal, not one of those "I read a mommy blog and now think I should start a design business") who is available for consultations. Just sayin'...
Dec 5th, 2018