While we do not have experience building other custom homes, we can certainly speak to our experience with Hibbs Homes. Our particular situation was very challenging as we were building from 300 miles away, and with two young kids making a lot of trips to St. Louis was not an option. When we started researching and contacting builders, one of the critical differentiators was communication. Some were responsive, others were not. Kim immediately set up a call and spent well over an hour discussing their build process and our particular objectives. A month or so later I happened to be in the area and let him know I was interested in driving by a few of his properties just to take a look, he instead took me on a tour of several of his properties under construction. We started hunting for lots in the area, Kim was able to provide recommendations on realtors and lenders to help in the process and provided lot options as they came up. With Kims help we were able to better understand building restrictions in our location of interest and what that meant for lot size as related to our target house. That allowed us to hone in our target lot size, figure out prices paid by other builders, and be prepared should an opportunity present itself. Kim happened upon a lot that fit all of our criteria and that prior preparation allowed us to move quickly to secure the lot. The budgeting process can be stressful because most people have a finite budget and we certainly wanted more than our budget could support. Kim supported a number of phone calls to help us reorganize the budget to fit within our targets. Once the build was underway, we set up weekly calls with the superintendent to review questions, progress on the build, etcâ ¦ In parallel, the Hibbs Home team were coordinating selections and updated pricing information. In addition, Kim was always a quick email/phone call away and was immediately responsive. The whole house is custom, but a number of very specific request were made from us and all were addressed, from the exact trim design for the doors/windows, precise model number switch/timer installation location, custom designed built-ins, speaker/ethernet wire installation as drawn by us, tile designs drawn by us. The end product was a beautiful, incredibly energy efficient and comfortable home delivered within our budget constraints. This speaks volumes for Hibbs Homes capability as this was all done over the course of four or five visits with everything else being supported via phone/email. Is the build process perfect? No. Will mistakes be made? Yes. A custom home is an extremely complex project involving a number of contractors, vendors, and other personnel orchestrating to your exact specification, expecting perfection is just not realistic. The critical differentiator here is not perfection, it is minimization of mistakes, and the response when mistakes happen. Mistakes that were made were corrected, and the mistakes were both minor and few and far between. We also had issues that were totally outside of anyones control, and Hibbs did all they could to minimize the impact of those on schedule and budget. It is not a perfect science but Hibbs Homes has established a process that helps minimize mistakes and ensure construction is done on time (weather permitting!) and within budget. Reviews were an essential part of weeding through the substantial number of builders in the St. Louis area. We hope this review provides some insight into what might set Hibbs Homes apart from other builders in the area.
