Tell us where the lot is, or tell us you are still looking.
We start four to six houses a year. Sending this does not commit you to anything and it does not put you in a sequence. It starts a conversation with the person who will price your house.
Three things worth knowing first.
Four to six a year means the calendar fills. If we cannot take your build we will say so in the first reply and tell you which two builders we would call, by name.
A house is not a service call. We would rather read what you wrote, look at your lot, and then call you having thought about it.
The first meeting, the site walk and the feasibility sketch are all free. The first invoice comes when you sign a design agreement, and you will see it coming weeks in advance.
Currently taking starts for late 2026.
- Day 1
A replyFrom Miguel, not from an assistant
Usually the same day, occasionally the next. If you named a lot he will have looked at it on the county map before he writes back, so the reply will have something in it rather than a request for a meeting.
- Week 1 or 2
The site walkAn hour on the ground, no charge
If you own the lot, we walk it. If you are still looking, we walk one you are considering. You get one page back: what will fit inside the setbacks, what the site work is likely to run, what the review process there looks like, and anything that would make us hesitate.
- Week 3 or 4
A real numberA range, with the arithmetic shown
Not a price per square foot. A range for the house, the site work, the permits, the design fees and the things people forget, laid out the way sheet 03 lays them out. If that number and your number are not in the same country, this is where we find out, and it costs nobody anything.
- Month 2
A design agreementThe first thing you sign, and the first money
It covers the architect, the engineering and our pricing work alongside them. Design and engineering runs four to seven months and the construction contract comes at the end of it, priced against drawings that exist rather than against a hope. Sheet 04 has the whole schedule.
Told in advance, so nothing in it is a surprise.
The construction contract is a fixed price agreement against a complete drawing set and the published specification on sheet 07, with the six allowances written in dollars rather than described in adjectives. Changes are priced in writing before they happen, and anything that is our error is not a change.
Florida requires that a residential construction contract over $2,500 include a notice about the Homeowners’ Construction Recovery Fund, which exists to compensate homeowners in specific cases of contractor misconduct. It will be in your contract, in the form the statute requires. It belongs there rather than on a website, and we mention it here because a buyer who knows in advance what he will be asked to sign has less to worry about at the table.
You will also see the payment schedule, which follows construction draws rather than the calendar, and the warranty terms: one year on the house, two on systems, ten structural through a third party.
Castellano Building Company. Florida certified general contractor CGC[0000000].
Three questions before you send it.
How much do I need to have worked out before I contact you?
Very little. A rough size, a rough budget and whether you have land is enough for a useful first conversation. Plenty of people arrive with nothing but a saved listing and a number they are not sure about, and that is a better starting point than a finished plan drawn by somebody who has never seen the lot. What we would ask is that the budget you tell us is the real one rather than the one you are hoping to hear back.
Do you charge for the first meeting or the site walk?
No, and there is nothing to sign to get one. The first meeting, the walk and the feasibility page cost nothing, take about a week, and are how we work out whether we are the right company for what you want. About a third of these conversations end with us telling somebody they do not need a design build company at all, and that is a fine outcome.
What if you cannot take my project this year?
Then we say so immediately rather than keeping you warm. Our calendar usually fills nine to twelve months ahead, so a house you want to start in eighteen months is normal timing rather than early. If the date does not work at all we will give you the names of two other builders we would actually use, and we will tell you why, which is a short list because most of the ones we would recommend are also full.