Advanced Builders & Contractors in Tarzana

Review №1

2023-06-27 01:34:39

Just like many other homeowners when it comes to an extensive construction project you really dont know the proper steps or where to start. My partner and I started looking around at different websites and trying to understand what we wanted. We finally came up with what we envisioned our new home to look like. It turns out that this was not going to be just a simple home remodeling. There were so many moving parts that it was hard to understand sometimes. You speak to an architect first to develop a full set of plans or do you speak to a contractor first to get a idea of cost. We started interviewing several contractors all of them were good and gave us an idea of how we should approach our home remodeling. Some of them said that it would be better for us to knock the home down and start building from scratch others told us that it would be better just to extend and add a room addition to the side and back of the home. It seemed like we were more confused than the beginning. Then we interviewed a couple of architects. Which let me tell you their prices were all over the place. One of the architects wanted to charge us on a hourly basis while others would work on the entire file from beginning to end for flat feet. Somehow we landed on advanced builders and contractors. We met with Nick early in the spring. Just like the rest of the contractors we met with he was extremely professional and took his time explaining the process. He was intuitive and fully engaged. His answers were to the point short and easy to understand. In a way you could say that he didnt sugar coat anything but rather was very cantor. I remember the meeting being extremely insightful and eye opening. It was after that meeting when we decided that Nick would be a good contractor for us to work with. But we still had a long way to go. We have to come up with a design that would work with our house, the architect would need to draw up the plans so that it made sense and then afterwards we will need to submit everything to an engineer to see how bad or good the structural would be and after all that we could take everything back to Nick to see that if we could afford to do such a project. It took us a good year to get a complete set of plans. Throughout that time Nick would reach out to us every once in a while and ask if we had any questions. Once we had a good standing on all the plans we then submitted to the city of LA. Once we had our permits we were ready to begin construction. We found a house nearby where we leased it out and then we began construction. ABC quickly tore down our existing home and the construction on the new home began. The entire process lasted for a bit more than a year. From the beginning they had given us a strict timeline to follow. Explain to us what materials we would need and when we would need it at the house. That also giving us a progress payment to follow. Nick was an integral part of the building process. Once again he was very resourceful for finding the materials we needed. We were able to use a lot of his vendors to source out the materials we needed. Our new home is now built and we couldnt be happier with the end results. If youre looking for a contractor to build I highly recommend that you if you at least and to make sure that you click with someone that makes sense to you. The same gos for an architect although theres a lot of good architects out there. The way theyre on their business and the way they do their billing is very different. One other tip I would give you is to ask a lot of questions because once you settle with an architect and a contractor its hard to go back and start the process with someone else.

Review №2

2022-05-10 19:53:36

I am beyond happy with the level of care advanced builders provides. The attention to detail and customer service is second to none. Nick and his team were extremely hands on. They helped me from the very beginning and held my hand from the beginning of the construction project all the way to completion of construction. There are so many decisions to make when it comes to building a new house. Theres so many people that you have to meet with and make so many decisions that sometimes this becomes overwhelming. What I liked about the ABC is that stuck with what they were good at and if something came up that they were not experienced in for example doing the actual plans, they introduced me to an architect and an engineer who did the plans for me. ABC and Nick were an easy decision for me. Because they made the process as simple as possible. They didnt sugarcoat anything. They always told me the truth whether there was good news or bad news. Several times throughout the project Nick would call me and tell me that they had come up against an obstacle and that he was working on a plan. Even though sometimes it was very stressful to get this news. I really like his transparency because it meant that he cared about the project and that he wanted to see it through. In life there are lots of different people that come and go and that promise you things that they can do. But Im here to tell you that Nick is not one of those guys and he actually does what he says. Throughout the entire project he was very transparent, he was always able to tell us the truth even though sometimes it was very stressful for us. He always answered his phone and got back to us. He made sure that his crews worked long hours and made significant progress everyday. His Cruise were extremely detailed oriented and they actually cared about the outcome of the project. Not only did they care about their progress but they also cared about the progress of the other team members so that team could finish up a certain portion of the project and be able to hand it over to the other team in timely manner. Nick promised to build me a custom modern house and thats exactly what he did. I couldnt have made a better choice and I am certain that the work provided by Nick and his team is incomparable.

Review №3

2020-09-24 18:08:39

When we purchased our home a few years ago we knew the look we wanted but didn’t know where to start. Calling ABC was an excellent decision. We told them what we wanted to do and they gave us all the steps. They referred us to an architect who had done similar work. ABC kept up with us and once we had our plans, we got an estimate from them and a couple other contractors. They never pressured us to go with them but we felt comfortable with them and they seemed like the best fit. So happy with our choice! We did a full kitchen remodel including knocking down walls, adding arches, adding two bedrooms, added a massive glass door. Pool and landscaping and updated the whole house from top to bottom, changed all the flooring. It looks like a new home! We love it! The ABC team was always available and fixed any issues that came up. Went above and beyond! Answered all of our questions, were very patient with design changes. ABC Thank you so much for everything!

Review №4

2023-12-01 20:46:47

ABC is a first class company from the bottom to the top. They made the entire process clear and transparent for us from day one. Their customer service is one of the best that I have ever dealt with when it comes to a construction company. Nick the owner was very involved with us and reassured us every step of the way. By following his and his contractors direction we added tremendous value to the home. Nick and is very detailed oriented and demanded high quality from his contractors. One thing we loved about ABC is that they always provided us different options that would suffice our budget. Based off of our budget renew what we could afford and hence we were able to add value to the home. A lot of the ideas that we thought of from day one quickly changed once we realized how much things cost and how much value they would add to our home. Another benefit of working with Nick was that he was very patient and took the time to explain to us in great detail how each step of the process would work. When it was time to remodel our kitchen he brought in a kitchen designer who completely blew us away with her ideas and ultimately we ended up going with her design rather than our own design. We would have never thought of opening up the kitchen the way she did and adding an island. I know in the background that Nick and the kitchen designer worked many hours to come up with the ultimate design and plan that would make us happy. I would like to add that I am extremely happy with this company and would like to thank all their office staff and of course all of the contractors that came to our house to work.

Review №5

2023-03-30 23:42:28

My partner and I bought a home in Encino. From the beginning of our home journey we knew we wanted to buy a fixer and add to it. I had a good experience with the realtor, and thats who recommended advanced builders and contractors. She said she knows of this company and had referred them out to her previous clients who had done home remodeling with them. We had several different ideas and wanted to see what would make the most sense. We met Nick very early on in the process. He came out and probably spent a good 2 hours with us going over our remodeling ideas and what would make the most sense for the flow of the house. We had a bunch of rooms next to each other and really wanted to have an open concept home. So he recommended how we could remove some of the walls and have a great room this way our living room dining room and kitchen will all now be one room. In order to accomplish that we had to remove some walls redo some of our framing and obviously add foundation. Advanced builders and contractors took care of all the construction we just gave them ideas and what we wanted the different rooms to look like. The pricing was reasonable and they were always there when we needed the support or help. When we compared their clothes to other construction companies. There were almost identical but we just had a better feeling with advanced builders and contractors. I also appreciate everyone in their office staff because about once a week they would reach out to us to get an update on the project, they werent too pushy but you can see that they really cared about their clients. I also appreciated the fact that they were in business for so long and had so many vendors that we could go to. This made the process much easier for us because it was a easy transaction from the vendor to the general contractor who was going to build our house. This is also a good time to thank the architect and engineer they introduced us to because they gave us a lot of good feedback and great guidance on how we should restructure this house to be able to get the maximum usable space out of it. It was probably two or three intense meetings with everyone involved from the foundation people to the architect. Those meetings were extremely important because since we had everyone in one room we were able to come up with a great set of plans that would fit our budget and we knew exactly what needed to be done. And everyone was able to participate and put in their two cents. Overall Im very happy with everyone that worked on our home.

Review №6

2023-07-10 18:11:48

Advanced builders and contractors did a great job on our home remodeling. The project manager was Nick, he was very responsive to phone calls and texts. We like to communicating with him because he would send out a group chat with everyone involved so we would always know whats going on that day. We also like the fact that he would give us any updates on setbacks or issues that we had to deal with. Near the end of our remodeling process we had several days where there were heavy rains and they couldnt work outside so Nick woul always give us a heads up on what would happen if we miss the particular day and we have to make it up. The results were better than we expected. Overall I think I got a pretty good value for my money. We know that this is not going to be our forever home and that we will be relocating to some other parts of Los Angeles and the near future. So when that time comes and if we need any remodeling in that house we will definitely use this company again.

Review №7

2023-08-18 01:01:49

The advantage of working with advanced builders and contractors versus other contractors was that they really cared about the outcome. Nick spent so much time with us preparing us on what was coming up, what was still on the table and what we had to accomplish. He worked hand in hand with our architect and sometimes even our engineer to be able to scale the project back to make sure that we could fit it in our budget. There was several meetings that were pretty critical because once we got the contractor and the engineers together then they were able to communicate in their own language and to come up with a set of plans that we could then use for our renovations. We had done other smaller models in the past but this was way out of our league and we definitely needed professional help. For example, the last architect and engineer we used to do the small remodels told us right away as soon as we hit them with this big project that it was out of their league and they would not be comfortable giving us a set of plans that would get approved by the city of LA. Thats how we found Nick. Our architect new him from previous projects and I knew that he would be a good fit for us. If you have a large scale renovation coming up I recommend you call these guys. We had a positive outcome with them.

Review №8

2022-09-01 23:20:59

This company did an amazing job and we couldnt be any happier with the services they provided for our new home! We had bought an older home and werent sure if we wanted to remodel it or tear it down and build a new construction house. After a while of living in the house we decided that it would be best for us to tear it down and build a new home. We found an architect who had reasonable prices and was able to see our vision with the new home. When our plans were almost done. We started looking for general contractors. Our architects gave us a couple of recommendations but they didnt really pan out and their budgets were not realistic with ours. We asked several colleagues and friends for recommendations of general contractors, but those also were not such a great fit for us because of the timeline they gave us and because it just wasnt good chemistry. At this point I think we had interviewed about five general contractors and none of them had worked out. While we were still researching on our own to find a general contractor out of the blue, the architect got in touch with us and told us to try yet another general contractor. He said that he had worked with him in the past and had great results. That general contractor turned out to be Nick. Initially our architect didnt recommend him because he was busy. But lucky for us he was about to finish up a couple of projects so he would be able to take ours project on in about 2 months when we were expecting our permits anyways. From the very beginning we liked Nick. We explained to him that we are budget conscious and that we had picked out specific materials to be used in the new home. We worked very closely with him from the beginning to the successful completion. We are extremely happy with the outcome of our new home. I would without a doubt refer them to anyone who needs any home services. Thanks ABC!

Review №9

2023-05-02 23:36:22

What I liked about this general contractor is that they had a simple approach to building your home. Everything was broken down into plain English. There was no extra sales tactic to buy more and they delivered on what they would do. More so I liked the fact that their pricing was fair and everything was written down and broken out. So we knew exactly what was included in our contract and how much it would cost to build our house. We looked into three different general contractors and all of them were good. We chose advanced builders and contractors because they stood out to us to be the best choice for us as a contractor. If youre looking for a general contractor who returns phone calls and replies back to emails in a timely manner. This is the general contractor to call.

Review №10

2023-09-14 21:18:46

I dont think we had any idea when we bought our hillside home, how hard it would be to do an addition let alone a deck of the hill and an infinity pool. We were very attracted to this home because the views were phenomenal, and you could see a lot of the LA skyline. But what we didnt know is how hard it would be to get permits. We thought that you would be able to get permits just like you would any other ordinary home, but we were very wrong. Almost every contractor we talk to would ask us: do you have permits? do you have plans? have you done any soil reports? with out that we can not give you a price. We didnt even know what half of that stuff meant. There are a lot of disadvantages when you have a hillside home one of them being that the city will ask you for many different reports before they will give you permits. Thats exactly what happened to us as soon as we hired an architect to draw out our addition in the back of the hillside, he told us right away that we would need soil and geological reports. He also made us aware of how expensive this project could get especially if we wanted to do a Infinity pool and full addition on the other side of the house, we also wanted to add a deck off of the hill. So going into the process we understood that it would be very expensive but I dont think we had any idea of time, at the end it took about 11 months for the city to be able to approve our final permits. Once we had our permits it was easier to be able to communicate with different contractors because now they ccould understand what we wanted to build and they actually had structural plans. We contacted a few contractors who specialize in hillside ultimately we ended up going with advanced builders and contractors. They demonstrated the best skill set and experience to be able to do our hillside project. They were also able to show us several projects that they had done which included a room addition and a new pool build. It was a massive effort to build the room addition of the back of the home including so much effort into grading and shoring so that the pool and deck would be stable also. Im very grateful to advance builders and contractors for all of the time that they spent on our property perfecting every square inch.