FAQ

Building a custom home in Durango, CO, offers a unique blend of stunning natural beauty and vibrant community life. With its breathtaking San Juan mountain views, access to Mesa Verde, the Canyonlands, and outdoor adventures like hiking, world class road and mountain biking, kayaking, rafting, paddle boarding, and skiing (Purgatory is just 30 minutes away or a little further lands you at Silverton Mountain) Durango provides an ideal backdrop to your dream home. Like to fish? The Animas River flows right through town and offers gold medal trout waters. Maybe you just want to walk your dog on the river path and explore our charming downtown filled with local shops and eateries? Let’s not forget the Durango/Silverton Narrow Gauge Train – chugging away through the rugged San Juan National Forest is a treat for all. Every season is wonderful and unique and with 300 + days of sunshine, there is never a bad time to visit. Whether you’re looking for a cozy retreat or a spacious family home, Durango’s welcoming atmosphere and strong sense of community make it a fantastic place to settle down.

When you’re ready to build your dream home, you want to ensure everything is perfect. After all, this is likely one of the biggest investments you’ll ever make! So, taking the time to walk through your routines with Agave is important. Only by Understanding how you like to entertain, cook, relax, and live day to day in our four seasons guides can we ensure that you will love your home for years to come.

We get this question all the time and the answer is the same: one size does not fit all when it comes to the cost of a custom home. Since the home is one-of-a-kind, so, too, is its price tag. Factors that can affect the price include total square footage including outdoor porches and patios, the architectural style, design efficiency, level of fit and finish, technology installation, interesting architectural features like fireplaces, multi-slide windows decorative beams and staircases.You the homeowner have a high level of control over the final cost, and Agave helps you build your house to budget.

Building a custom home is one of the most exciting projects you can take on. It’s also one of the most challenging, loaded with decisions to make and new terms to understand. Agave simplifies this and makes it fun! Our experienced team will lead you through each stage ensuring your needs and desires are achieved while managing the process and decision-making with you. Because of the scarcity of land these days in La Plata County, buying an existing home and remodeling often feels and looks like new, custom home construction.

The design phase is foundational in bringing your dream home to life, involving anywhere from four to six months of collaboration with architects, engineers and the team at Agave. We typically have 3-4 iterations of the home before we get it exactly right, down to every detail, from layout to finishes. We love pictures and images of “all things home” that speak to you – building those house ideabooks is a great place to launch.

One of the first steps many assume in the custom home building process is the need to secure a plot of land. However, involving Agave at the onset can provide critical advantages. Our team happily offers guidance selecting the perfect site that aligns with your vision and budget, helping to assess the land’s suitability for construction and potential hidden costs. We have built homes all over La Plata County and know the lay of the land.

We do not typically price homes by the square foot, and there is a good reason for that!

We price homes based on specific plans, specifications, and site details. For example, each of the following plan concepts would have very different costs per sqft: 

• Master Suite on 2nd floor with a one-story Great Room
• Master Suite on 2nd floor with a two-story Great Room
• Master Suite on main level
• Ranch

Then we factor in details like garages, lot preparation, specific finishes and features, basements, outdoor entertaining, landscaping, and more. Furthermore, looking only at price per square foot won’t capture the unique features of your home and can be really misleading, especially when supply chains and material costs are temporarily inflated, as they have been during 2021.

Agave has been working with local lenders for over 20 years. We can recommend a few or will work with someone you know.

Agave has several meetings with clients, refining the home design and budget. You will know the total price of your home before we start construction, based on your custom plans and detailed specifications, and the only way that changes is when we agree on any change orders — so there are no surprises.

This is one of the most important questions that we are often asked. We recommend that new clients tour a home to see different finishes, get comfortable with styles, and see what is possible. We take great pride in the work we do and the lasting relationships we create with clients. In fact, we have several clients who have hired Agave to build them different houses over the years.

Agave takes pride in our communication skills, so you can rest assured that you’ll still be up-to-date with what’s going on at your home whether it’s a kitchen renovation or a new home construction. During COVID we have had weekly ZOOM  meetings with clients and you can expect at least a weekly call from your Project Manager.

Agave values the Durango community and the world we live in, so we’re dedicated to enhancing and preserving our environment. Agave uses a variety of effective and innovative green home building techniques to create your perfect home. When building custom homes, we use air sealing techniques and foam insulation. “We use state-of-the-art air-sealing techniques, high-efficiency appliances, and premium grade insulation all to ensure maximum energy efficiency. All our homes are tested by an independent third party to verify efficiency.”

Start with Agave, your builder. We take the partnership approach. We love working with clients and strive to translate client dreams and visions into their dream homes–with an outstanding experience along the way. We have decades’ worth of experience, and that means our clients receive our undivided attention, our expertise, and our knowledge of local banks and lenders, suppliers, and designers. Really, it means less stress, more savings, and more satisfaction.

Agave follows the SW Homebuilders Association guidelines by offering a one-year warranty. But customer satisfaction is our number one goal, and so we will work with customers to make sure they are happy with their home, period. The relationship and trust built during planning and construction serves everyone well. Agave sums up this philosophy by saying, “We treat people the way we want to be treated. We treat people fairly and give value for the dollar.”

No, come visit with the Agave team first. All of our homes are truly unique and have been custom designed for each client, our most successful projects are those in which we’re involved in the plan development from the very beginning. We’re able to provide valuable information throughout the design process regarding building costs and constructability. We work with some very talented architects, but it truly pays to have Agave in the room making sure you’re designing a home that can and will be built within your budget.

The timeline for constructing a custom home is variable, typically ranging from 12 to 16 months from the initial design to the final walkthrough. Factors influencing this timeframe include the design’s complexity, the lot’s characteristics, and sometimes the weather can be fickle in the San Juans.

Pre-construction agreements really begin the process of creating your new home. It is an assessment of the construction site, the soils, the survey, and the layout and really prepares us to move into the design phase, where your vision really begins to come alive.