| Client Testimonials |
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Dear Nick-
After being in the house for several months, we wanted to take a moment to “formally” thank you for the great building experience and to let you know how absolutely thrilled we are with our new home. Building a home can be a stressful time, but your “can do” attitude, attention to detail, and integrity made building our dream home a wonderful experience. You really listened to us from the beginning and understood our vision for our new home, and we were so impressed with the great set of skilled craftsmen that you use as your subcontractors. We would recommend Eastman Homes to anyone. After hearing horror stories about other builders, we’ve seen firsthand that you are a builder with the highest integrity. You’ve stood by everything you told us from the beginning of the process, and your attitude and patience made the whole building experience enjoyable as well as rewarding. After move-in, you’ve handled any follow-up items, no matter how small, in such a professional and extremely timely manner. Should the need ever arise, we would definitely build again with Eastman Homes. We appreciate your friendship and the professionalism we have experienced throughout the whole process.
Thank you for building us a beautiful, quality home that we absolutely love!
RLH ----------------------------------------------------------
It is interesting that you e-mailed us, because I had just mentioned to my husband that I should tell Nick that I, too, would be willing to share our building experiences with you and your husband. I think a woman's point of view is of equal importance, when making such a big decision. In any event, I would recommend Nick to anyone without reservation. My husband and I were quite nervous about this building venture, since our many prior homes had been built before we purchased them. In other words, we had not a clue about what to expect. We had heard many horror stories, and admittedly were rather apprehensive. Our experience with Nick, however, turned out to be so positive. First of all, he is genuinely a very nice person. He is trustworthy. If he tells you something, he stands by it. He is patient and very pleasant in the manner in which he conducts business. He also is willing to make sure that every detail is completed to your satisfaction. We especially appreciated his creative approach to design and utility. He was willing to work with us to help us stay within our budget. He was always available to answer questions and alleviate any concerns that we had. We looked at some of the houses that were being built by other preferred builders in the area. From my point of view they were "plain vanilla" - not nearly as creative and imaginative as Nick's homes.
My husband and I recently retired and moved to this area to be near family. A dear friend of ours had helped us put our preliminary ideas and desires about what we wanted in our home in a sketch. We gave Nick this initial sketch, and he gave it to his designer. From there he made sure that our dream of what we wanted in our home became a reality. We have been in our home for a year now, and I still say to may husband, "I really love our home."
Good luck to you with the selection of a builder. I know that if Nick is your choice, you will have no regrets. Please feel to contact us further, if you have other more specific questions.
Sincerely,
DLW
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My wife and I both had a wonderful and educational experience working with Nick Eastman as a builder. In working with him we discovered his engineering background to be very strong. His attention for details in the quality of construction in all aspects is a bonus, and his genuine nature to insure the structural foundation was solid. Also, he works well with you in the pre-design phase to include those specific attributes that you would like to highlight and feature within your home. More specifically, he cares about your needs as it relates to the priorities you're selecting in the project and values your input. For example, my wife and I were very emphatic about the exterior and interior stone selections, the granite countertops, a room addition with extra storage space, and Nick was very amenable in working with us to include those highlights. He’s genuinely interested in you finding comfort in the building process.
Nick works with very good sub-contractors.
In terms of Nick operating within budget, he's good at operating within budget(+/-).
In conclusion, I would strongly recommend Nick Eastman as the builder of choice. He's hard working with integrity, and truly knows how to build an excellent home. I'm sure you will be more than satisfied with the end result. Good luck and don't hesitate to contact me or my wife in the future. Perhaps when it's finally complete you can invite us over to celebrate!
Warm regards,
GDJ
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I can't imagine a customer not having good things to say about Chase. Our experience with him was fantastic. He really listened to my ideas and my pictures, and he made the house even better than I imagined. And if you remember, we had worked with another builder for about four months prior to that and had given him the same pics and ideas, and he came up with something that wasn't even in the same league as Chase's design. And he seemed irritated with me for all the changes I asked for. That was the other reason I liked Chase so much- you know how picky I am, and he seemed always happy to make a tiny little change for me.
If it would help with this or any other potential customer of yours, bring them on over to look at our house. (Can you tell I'm ready to show off our house to anyone I can convince to walk through?)
LH
---------------------------------------------------------- I was referred to you by Eastman Homes. I have purchased a lot in plan to build a home there after the first of the year. Could you please tell me about your experience with them as a builder? Did they come in within the budget? Were they on time? Did they perform up to your expectations? Would you use them again? What went wrong? Anything you can tell me about your experience would be helpful.
Thanks.
LDW ---------------------------------------------------------- This is my 7th home to build since 1975 when I moved into the Austin area and I have used 7 different builders. However, this is the first home that I designed from scratch. I spent the 1st year designing the home and choosing where to build it. I looked at several (4) different builders before choosing to go with Eastman Homes. This is a large home (4500 sqft heated and 7500 sqft covered) with several unique features.
Why did I choose to go with Eastman Homes? I wanted to go with a custom builder that was genuinely interested in building the product that I wanted. Out of all the builders I interviewed with my design, Eastman Homes was the only one that impressed me in concept and desire. To the other builders this was yet another revenue source. I watched Eastman Homes build another house and I thought the quality of the end product was much better than I was seeing from the other builders I interviewed.
What is my experience with Eastman Homes? Very easy to work with. I have a complex schedule (too much world travel) and they work within my constraints. I feel that they are very committed to meeting the objectives that I set for building this home.
Did Eastman Homes meet my budget constraints? In the beginning I set a target price for what I wanted to build and they developed a budget whereby I could build this house. As stated before, this is a full custom home where I wanted full control over what went into the home. This meant that outside of basic construction, everything was a budget. They have held true to all fixed budgets. Where I did proper homework on what I wanted before setting the budget, then those budgets are right on target. I have a few items that are over budget, mainly because I did not do the homework up front. If you are looking to build a custom spec home, I believe that Eastman Homes will set budgets that are appropriate unless you make changes. The secrete to budgets is homework. If a budget is set based on certain selections and you decide to change those selections then the budget will change. Even with all of the changes (including adding another room upstairs) I feel that my budget is under control. My suggestion is that the homeowner has to own the budget and live within those constraints.
Was Eastman Homes on time? I experienced two delays in the start of this project. One was that the plumbing sub-contractor was lying about when they were going to show up. Eastman Homes got firm with them and they then performed as expected. The other delay was a backlog for inspection at the city. All builders are subject to the mercy of the inspectors - I think we hit a bad time.
Has Eastman Homes performed to my expectations? Compared to all of the other builders that I have worked with over the years, I would put Eastman Homes at the top of the list due to his commitment and follow through. Has everything gone perfectly? No, but it never has on any home that I have built. I am a perfectionist and hate any sort of re-work. The workmanship and quality of materials are the best I have seen on any of the homes that I have built. I am very impressed.
Would I use Eastman Homes again? Yes
What went wrong? As stated earlier there were a few weeks of startup delays. I feel that I could have done more homework on some of my budgets, but nothing is out of control.
If you are building a custom spec home, then the builder will take more ownership of budget and design choices. You just need to make sure that you know what you want up front.
If you are building a full custom design as I am, then you have to do a lot of homework up front to make sure you set correct expectation with yourself.
I hope that this helps in your decision process.
BKM ----------------------------------------------------------
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