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UNICOI HOMES

Build on your land

You own the hard part already.

Land is the piece most people spend years getting right — the view, the trees, the road, the county. If you have it, you are further along than anyone shopping a subdivision, and the rest of this is more straightforward than it looks from the outside.

This page answers the questions people ask us in the truck, on the way back down the driveway.

How it goes.

  1. 01

    We walk the land

    Free, and before anything is signed. We read access, slope, rock risk, where the septic can go, how far the power has to come. You leave knowing which plans fit your ground and which ones would fight it.

  2. 02

    You get numbers in writing

    The published price for the plan you pick, the fixed foundation option your lot needs, and honest sitework ranges for your specific piece of ground — with the what-ifs named before you sign, not discovered later.

  3. 03

    Your bank sees a finished file

    Plan, fixed price, full specification, sitework numbers. Underwriters like that file, and it is part of why we build the way we do.

  4. 04

    We build it

    Permits, inspections, and draws in order. You hear from the person building your house, not from a call center — and you hear about a problem the week it happens, not at the end.

Paying for it.

Many people building on their own land use a construction-to-permanent loan: the bank pays us in draws as the work passes inspection, and the loan converts to a regular mortgage when you move in. One closing, one set of paperwork.

Here is the part people do not expect — the land is usually the down payment. If you own your lot free and clear, its appraised value typically covers most or all of what the bank wants down. That is the quiet advantage of building on ground you already hold, and it is the reason a build like this is often reachable when buying a finished house at the same number is not.

We do not originate loans. What we hand your lender is a complete file — the plan, the fixed price, the full specification, and the sitework numbers for your lot. A fixed, published price is easier to underwrite than an open-ended cost-plus contract.

How long it takes.

A library plan runs about ten months from the day we start grading to the day you get the keys. Ahead of that: two or three weeks to walk the land and put numbers to it, then six to eight weeks for permits and for your loan to close — county depending.

Three things move a schedule in these mountains: rock, rain, and the power company. We will tell you which one is moving yours the week it starts moving.

What you choose, and what we've already decided.

Building a true custom house means making about a thousand decisions, most of them at a showroom counter on a Thursday afternoon when you are already tired. Plenty of people enjoy that. In our experience at least half do not — they wanted a good house, not a second job, and somewhere around the plumbing-trim selection they stop enjoying any of it.

So we decided. That is the product. Every plan in the library is already drawn, already priced, and already specified down to the door hardware, and the three looks are three finished rooms, not three starting points. You are picking a house, not assembling one.

What is yours to choose:

  • Which of the five plans fits how you live
  • Which of the three looks it wears, inside and out
  • Slab or basement, garage or carport
  • The handful of real selections inside each look — paint direction, floor tone, sink, hardware
  • How the house sits on your land, and which way the porch faces
  • Where the windows land for your particular view

That is a kitchen-table afternoon, not eight months of appointments. And the decisions underneath it — the ones that are tedious to make and expensive to make badly — are on Our Standard, in writing, the same in every house we build.

If you want to move a wall, ask — sometimes the answer is yes and it is priced in writing before anything moves. But we are slow to redraw a plan that has already been built and corrected, and past a certain point you are not modifying the Soque anymore. You are designing a custom, and we would rather do that properly, from a blank sheet. That is what custom builds are for.

Don't own the land yet?

Then let us look before you buy, not after. We will walk a lot you are considering with you — free, same as any other site evaluation — and tell you what it will cost to build on before you are committed to it. Access, slope, rock risk, whether it will perc, how far the power has to come.

We have talked people out of lots. It is cheaper than the alternative, and a bad piece of ground can eat the difference between two of our plans before a wall goes up.

We do not sell land. We just know which of these lots are worth what they are asking.

Have us look at a lot

After you move in.

A house is not finished when you get the keys — it is finished after it has been through a summer and a winter and you have found the things only living in it will find.

So every Unicoi home carries a third-party insured 1‑2‑10 warranty. One year on workmanship and materials — doors, trim, drywall, paint, hardware, the settling a house does in its first season. Two years on the systems inside the walls: plumbing, electrical, and the HVAC distribution. Ten years on the structure itself.

The important word is insured. The structural coverage is written and backed by a national warranty company, not by a promise from us — which means it does not depend on this company still being here in a decade, and it transfers to the next owner if you sell. That is worth something to you when you buy and worth something again when you don't own it anymore.

What it doesn't cover, said plainly rather than buried:

  • Normal wear, and anything damaged after you move in
  • Homeowner maintenance — filters, caulk, grout, gutters, sealed decks
  • Seasonal movement in wood — floors, trim, and doors respond to humidity
  • Hairline cracks in concrete and masonry, which every slab gets
  • Grading, drainage, and landscaping after final grade is accepted
  • Appliances and fixtures, which carry their own manufacturer warranties

You get the full warranty document at closing, not a summary of one. Read it before you sign the build contract if you'd rather — ask and we'll send it.

Question we did not answer here? Ask it. We would rather talk it through on your land than have you guess from a website.

Next step

Own the land, or looking at one?

Either way, the first step is the same: we walk it with you, read what the ground will ask for, and put honest numbers to it. Free, and in writing.

Schedule a free site evaluation