Tricana Group
Straight answers on cost, timeline and approvals in Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego.
Custom cabinetry costs more than stock because it is built to the room instead of the room being planned around standard box widths, and because the substrate, joinery, drawer hardware and finish process are all a step up. Stock is assembled from a catalog of fixed sizes; custom is drawn, milled and finished for one project.
Read Why does custom cabinetry cost more than stock cabinets?
A construction manager oversees a project on the owner's behalf, managing budget, schedule and coordination without necessarily holding the trade contracts. Whether you need one depends on scale and on your own availability. Large or multi-prime projects justify a construction manager; most single family residential jobs run better with one accountable builder and no extra layer.
Read What is a construction manager, and do you need one?
SB 9 is the California law that opened a state level path to a lot split, and to more than one home, on many single-family parcels. Whether you can still use it on a given property depends on eligibility conditions, on how the local ordinance implements it, and on the legal status of the law at the time you apply.
Read What is SB 9, and can you still split a lot in California?
A custom home in Orange County typically takes two to three years from first design meeting to move-in. Roughly nine to fifteen months of that is design, engineering and permitting before anyone breaks ground; construction itself usually runs twelve to twenty months depending on site conditions, size and how many changes arrive mid-build.
Read How long does it take to build a custom home in Orange County?
You need a coastal development permit whenever you propose development inside California's coastal zone, which is a mapped boundary rather than a view of the water. Most new construction, additions, grading, demolition and shoreline work qualify. Either the local government or the Coastal Commission issues the permit, depending on the jurisdiction.
Read When do you need a coastal development permit in California?
Cost per square foot usually includes only the construction contract divided by conditioned floor area. It typically excludes design fees, permits, site work, landscape and furnishings, and the square foot denominator itself varies by who counted it. Without agreeing on both halves of that fraction, comparing two figures tells you almost nothing.
Read What does cost per square foot include on a custom home?
A construction contract should define scope by naming the exact drawing set with dates and revision numbers, set a schedule with substantial completion defined, and spell out price structure, schedule of values, retention, allowances, change order authority, unforeseen conditions, insurance, indemnity, lien releases, warranty and dispute resolution before anyone signs anything.
Read What should be in a construction contract before you sign?
The difference is contractual. Design-build gives the owner one contract covering design and construction together, so a single firm answers for what gets drawn and what gets built. Design-bid-build splits the work into two agreements, an architect first and a contractor bid afterward, which keeps design control and design-error risk with the owner.
Read What is the difference between design-build and design-bid-build?
Usually yes, but not automatically. State law has narrowed what cities may prohibit, so most single-family lots in California can accommodate an accessory dwelling unit. What stops real projects is site specific: setbacks, fire access, sewer or septic capacity, easements, utility service, historic overlays and recorded covenants. Confirm those and the current local ordinance before you design.
Read Can you build an ADU on any single-family lot in California?
A geotechnical report is a licensed soils engineer's study of what is under a site and what it can carry. It documents borings, soil classification, bearing capacity, expansion, groundwater and seismic behavior, then recommends a foundation. A project needs one because the plan checker, the structural engineer and the budget all depend on its conclusions.
Read What is a geotechnical report, and why does a project need one?
Plan check is a jurisdiction's line by line review of your drawings against building, structural, energy, zoning and fire requirements before a permit issues. It takes months because each reviewer returns a written correction list, the design team responds, and the corrected set goes to the back of the queue. Most projects run several of those loops.
Read What is plan check, and why does it take so long?
A whole house remodel typically takes twelve to twenty four months end to end, with roughly nine to fourteen of those months in construction. The spread is wide because nobody can fully scope a remodel until demolition opens the walls and shows what is behind them, and because permits and long lead materials move on their own schedules.
Read How long does a whole house remodel take?
Construction bids on the same drawings vary because the bidders are not pricing the same scope. The low number is usually low because something was excluded: work the drawings implied but never specified, allowances set unrealistically, general conditions left thin, or optimistic assumptions about the site. Normalize the bids before you compare them.
Read Why do construction bids for the same project vary so much?
Construction costs are still rising in Southern California because the pressure is structural rather than temporary. A shrinking skilled trade workforce, volatile materials and tariff exposure, higher insurance and bonding, code cycles that keep adding scope, and rebuild demand competing for the same crews all push the same direction at once.
Read Why are construction costs still rising in Southern California?
Search the Contractors State License Board public license lookup by license number rather than by business name. The record shows status, classifications, bonding, workers compensation and any disclosed discipline. Then confirm the classification covers your scope and the licensed entity matches the name on your contract. Verify general liability insurance separately, because the board does not report it.
Read How do you verify a contractor's license in California?
A tenant improvement is the interior build out that turns a shell or a previous occupant's space into something a new business can operate in. Who pays depends entirely on the lease. Most deals split it: the landlord funds an allowance toward the work, and the tenant pays for everything the allowance does not cover.
Read What is a tenant improvement, and who pays for it?
Most ADUs in California cost roughly $150 to $700 per square foot all in, with garage conversions at the low end and detached new construction at the high end. A small unit still needs a full kitchen, a bathroom, its own systems and its own utility connections, so those fixed costs spread across far less area.
Read How much does it cost to build an ADU in California?
A hillside lot costs more because the difficult work happens before the house is visible. Slope drives equipment access, soil export, deeper foundations, engineered retention and longer utility runs, and hillside ordinances limit how much you can grade. Expect a large share of the budget to be spent below finished grade.
Read What makes a hillside lot more expensive to build on?
Expect roughly two to eight months to get a building permit in Los Angeles once complete plans are submitted, and considerably longer when a project needs discretionary review. Minor work can clear over the counter in a day. Most custom residential projects go through full plan check and two or three correction cycles before approval.
Read How long does it take to get a building permit in Los Angeles?
The design phase of a custom home usually runs four to eight months, moving through programming, schematic design, design development and construction documents. Each stage closes a layer of decisions and hands work to a widening consultant team. The range is set less by drafting speed than by how fast the owner approves each stage.
Read What happens during the design phase of a custom home?
Fine custom home construction in Los Angeles generally runs $500 to $1,200 per square foot for the construction contract alone, and ultra-luxury work runs above that. The total project cost is higher, because site work, design fees, agency fees, landscape, furnishings and contingency all sit outside that number and are rarely quoted with it.
Read How much does it cost to build a custom home in Los Angeles?
