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Show Notes:
What does it really mean to be an “owner‑builder,” and how does that translate into real equity and savings on a new home? In this episode, Steve breaks down the owner‑builder model Landmark is built around: you act as the general contractor (and optionally do some hands‑on work), while Landmark handles the heavy lifting on design, structural engineering, energy codes, and a guaranteed‑price panelized framing package. He explains how serious, well‑designed plans empower owner‑builders to control quality, budget, and schedule—and why relying on a cousin’s sketch or cheap internet plans usually leads to missing structure, duct runs, insulation space, and endless change orders. You’ll learn how eliminating a general contractor’s 20–30% markup, negotiating your own materials and subs, and avoiding constant mid‑build changes can instantly create tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in equity, plus additional long‑term interest savings. Steve also compares Landmark’s one‑price, full‑service design and materials approach to the open‑ended costs of hiring separate architects, engineers, and lumberyards, and he shares how the company navigates lumber price swings, tariffs, and “never‑ending crises” by staying lean, efficient, and focused on one thing: helping owner‑builders get the exact custom home they want, in any state, at a controlled cost.Transcript:
Steve Tuma: If someone goes and gets an architect, a structural engineer, all these different people and put it together, the costs are just high — and it’s still not controlled.
Interviewer: Hello everyone, and welcome to Episode 82 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show.
With me today, as he usually is, is the President and Founder of Landmark Home and Land Company — a company which has been helping people build their new homes where they want, exactly as they want, in all 50 states and around the globe since 1993 — Mr. Steve Tuma.
Steve, how’s it going, buddy?
Steve Tuma: It’s a great day, another great day. You know, it’s interesting you say “all 50 states” — isn’t that amazing? We help people build houses in any state in the United States: California, New York, Florida, Colorado, Arizona, all these places.
But even within those states, there’s variations. Rarely, but occasionally, there’s cities at or below sea level. There’s the highest populated city of Leadville, Colorado. There’s the beach communities all along California. There’s the Northeast — those beautiful little towns, picturesque towns.
And we’ve literally worked in pretty much every condition — in mountain ranges, on waterfront, beach areas, lake areas, Midwestern situations, on the sides of hills, on the sides of mountains, earthquake zones, high snow loads, high wind zones. So it’s pretty incredible, the voyage this has been, to be able to completely support an owner‑builder in building their own home — no matter where they want to build.
Interviewer: Yeah. It’s a lot of fun.
Steve Tuma: Yeah. I mean, it seems like you like your work.
Interviewer: Steve?
Steve Tuma: Well, it’s pretty energizing when someone calls up and says, “Hey, I want to build this big house here in Carmel, California,” or, “Hey, I want to do something in Orlando or outside of Chicago or New York,” or whatever it is.
So it’s not necessarily just the designing of the home — it’s what’s happening to the family or people that are building. They’re newly married, they’re starting a new life, you know — retirement home, helping the kids get a house, helping mom and dad get a house, building an ADU for income, building a duplex for income, an investment situation.
So it’s kind of neat. It’s not just like, “Hey, let’s just get a house.” It’s a transformation of what really happens in people’s lives and how taking the time to make sure that the house is built right, designed right, works within their budget — of how much we can help them achieve their goal as an owner‑builder.
It’s an incredible situation. I think we’ve been doing it almost 33 years — since 1993. It’s pretty amazing.
Interviewer: Yeah, I think you guys have it down by now.
Steve Tuma: Pretty good, I think.
Interviewer: You know, today I thought we’d talk about the — we always talk about owner‑builders. What is the whole — what’s behind that phrase, “owner‑builder”? Let’s talk about the owner‑builder model and how exactly that work is laid out by Landmark Home & Land Company.
Steve Tuma: Well, what’s interesting about that is our customers are owner‑builders. So that means the person that is likely to live in the home is also the general contractor or the subcontractor.
So an owner‑builder is pretty much making sure that they’re building the house the way they want it, to stick to their schedule, to stick to their budget. A lot of people also do it because they want to know what’s going in their home — they want to make sure it’s done right. They want to make sure the quality’s there, the design elements and other features are put together.
So that’s generally what an owner‑builder will be — but it can span various degrees. Someone could literally be involved in every step of building the home — excavating, the foundation, framing the home, and continuing on. Or an owner‑builder can also be someone that manages the subcontractors that are building their home.
So a lot of people do it to control the quality. Sometimes it’s just a dream. We have a lot of people that are like, “When I was 12, I always wanted to build my home. Now I’m capable of doing it.” Some people do it for financial reasons — to save the money or get a nicer home for the same money. Other times, just affordability seems to be the big word that’s flying around now — homes are expensive. And if someone can save a considerable amount of money by building their own home, why not?
So our model kind of helps them get the biggest, one of the hardest components — designing the home, make sure it’s structurally sound, make sure it’s energy‑efficient, make sure it fits on the lot, and then supply the framing process.
As a one‑stop shop, we’re able to take care of a big component so that they can control their project. So they’ll tell us how they want the house — where they want walls, what the general look, what the garage is like, what the kitchen is like — and we’ll design the complete home with them.
So they understand it, they know our costs up front, and then they can go through and execute the building of the home with our excellent set of plans. Because with our great set of plans, they can talk to a knowledgeable contractor and get an accurate estimate.
Without accurate plans, it’s garbage in, garbage out. So if you give someone a bad set of plans — something you hand‑sketch, something you swipe off the internet — the details probably aren’t there. So you’re not going to get as accurate a cost.
But also, with a real set of plans, people are going to know you’re serious — you’ve put some effort into making sure the house is designed right.
So with our model, we help them understand the project, help them work to get the plan set that they need for easy permitting process and then also building. And then we deliver the panelized home package, which then is the complete wood structure that they can assemble — get a local contractor, or assemble themselves on site — and then get subcontractors to go through.
It’s a tremendous money savings.
Interviewer: How often do people come to you and say, “Well, I’d have you design it, but my cousin Dave took architecture in junior high, so I’m going to have him do it”?
Steve Tuma: You know what — usually that happens where they’re like, they’ll come to us with that. And… everyone’s got their capabilities, everyone’s proud of what they do. But the reality of needing us to do a professional design — we’re not just drawing a cute picture so someone could say, “Hey, look at this.”
We’re making sure it works for energy efficiency. We’re making sure it works for structural concerns. We’re making sure it fits the architectural needs that you need. If there’s green codes involved, it’s there. We’re making sure it’ll work for plumbing, electric, heating, and zoning and other details.
So although we do get a lot of plans from people, those essentially end up being great conceptual plans. So they’re good in that a customer’s begun the thinking process, but we can go through and finish it.
And people don’t believe it — we’ve gotten complete sets of plans from licensed professionals that can’t be built. Or the details aren’t there — where you need to do so much extra work — which is why we have our design process. Because then we can work to design the home that the customer wants and make sense for them, and make sense for their land, and make sense for their budget.
And we’re able to go through and make that happen instead of come up with a great, cute set of plans that just are below the customer’s budget. We’re able to work through and, for our part, give them an exact guaranteed price — which is amazing in the industry, but we do it. It’s something that is in full support of an owner‑builder — and even contractors. We work with a lot of contractors to help them with their building processes as well.
So planning is exceptionally important.
When you said that, “Hey, someone’s got a cousin, they can draw,” that’s a good starting point. But we need to go in and make sure the beams are sized right, make sure beams fit in an area, make sure that the space in a home is there that’s required for insulation — and the type of insulation that a person has.
So the level of thinking is a little bit more. The internet’s an amazing place. There’s a lot of bad information out there. There’s a lot of good information out there. Trying to decipher what is good and bad is the hard thing.
And just because there’s a free planning service out there doesn’t mean that the plans are done right. But it does give us an idea, if someone has drawn plans, to get a strong idea of what they want — and the customer’s gone through a certain point of designing.
But we always like to be involved with the design phase because there are so many elements that we do consider in our panelized home and owner‑builder processes, we’re able to make sure that they’re thought through and done properly. And then we’re also able to give a guaranteed price. That’s exceptionally important.
Interviewer: So you don’t get freaked out if you see a drawing with the curly‑Q line coming out of the chimney of a house design.
Steve Tuma: Hey, you know, at least they know what the chimney’s for.
The point you bring up there is: with some of the software and with what people can do in different places, it is a good‑looking plan. You’d be like, “Wow, that’s a nice‑looking house.” But what makes it stand up? Is there space for the heat ducts? Can the plumbing work? Is there space for the insulation?
And that’s the thing that typically isn’t thought through. And those are the things that people don’t always understand need to be taken care of. But we are there to take care of them. And it’s what we do every day. So we’ve got a proven process to help people get the house they want.
What people don’t realize — a lot of people say, “Oh, I just want cheap plans.” Well, that’s good. But the plans are the most important part of understanding budgeting and scheduling your house. So if you don’t have a good set of plans, it’s not possible to really have control of your project.
You want control of your project. And our system allows customers to be in control of their owner‑builder project. That’s what Landmark Home & Land Company does. It empowers the owner‑builder to understand their project and build their home, save money, know the quality of it, get the home that’s most beneficial for them.
Interviewer: You were talking about affordability earlier — it seems to be a catchphrase nowadays. How do you build equity in a new home, or in a new panelized home? And is being an owner‑builder actually worth it in the end, in your opinion of course?
Steve Tuma: Yeah. Well, building equity — equity is basically the difference of what its value is, and what it costs.
So let’s just — and customers tell me this a lot — they’ve saved $100,000, $200,000, some more on bigger homes. But that’s it. So if the house is worth half a million and you have $400,000 into it, by taking the time to design, build your own home, you have $100,000 equity. And that grows over time as you pay the loan down.
The key thing to that, that people don’t always look at, is they say, “Hey, I’ve saved money,” but they’ve also controlled the cost. They’ve understood what they want in the home. They get the house they want and they know the way it’s built. Because they’re the owner‑builder — they’re paying attention to it. They’re there on site seeing it.
But a thing that people don’t understand is the magnification of that savings. So if you had a half‑million‑dollar mortgage versus, say, a $400,000 mortgage — if that’s what your owner‑builder budget was — there’s a $100,000 savings. If you look at the savings of that $100,000 over the course of a mortgage, that may be $200,000 or $300,000 less payments you’re making to the bank.
Interviewer: All right. So let’s define the owner‑builder again — and we’ll come back to that. That role being obviously more than just swinging a hammer or out there buying new tool bags and standing out there.
Define the owner‑builder role for people who are planning to become perhaps an owner‑builder.
Steve Tuma: It’s basically planning and understanding and managing your complete project. To what degree? Like you say — some people are swinging the hammer, some people are digging homes, some people are running wires. Other people are just managing it with subcontractors to make sure the project gets done.
Some customers hire general contractors, but most of them work directly with the subcontractors or do a lot of the work themselves. And that’s where the money savings comes in.
Previously we were talking a little on the instant equity, or equity that gets in. In some cases, if someone can afford $400,000 but not $500,000, it allows them to get that better home at the lower cost.
So the owner‑builder, I guess just to summarize it, is just someone that wants to take control of their building project and wants to be involved to whatever degree they are. So they are working with the contractors, they’re working with us in the planning and the panelized package, and they’re making sure that the project comes through.
And in general, they’re doing it to save money. They want to see and know the quality in their home. They’re happy to do it. And a lot of the people — they just want to do it. It’s just something they want to do. They want to have the pride of knowing they built the home exactly the way they wanted. Because if they hired someone else to do it, they may not be able to do it — or they may not be able to afford it. It’s achieving a life goal for them.
Interviewer: Right. It’s a good way to put it, actually.
I want to go back, because I skipped over something that I was thinking, and then I got into my own funniness about the owner‑builder swinging a hammer. But explain it a little more in depth: how does the Landmark system create an immediate equity position just simply by reducing that labor cost that we were talking about earlier?
Steve Tuma: Well, in general it’s because general contractors typically make a 20 to 30 percent margin. So a customer that understands, with our good plans — that understands building, understands how to schedule it out — they can go through and get deals, buy things different ways, not have to pay for markups. And that’s where a considerable portion of it will be.
Also, our customers build some pretty nice homes. Even if they’re the most basic 1,000‑square‑foot ranch or some big mega‑mansion, they’re putting a lot of features in there that make sense that a typical tract builder or conventional builder may not put in. So they’re able to personalize and get their home.
So that instant equity is basically the difference of the money in compared to its value, and that’s what comes out of it.
In typical situations, people add that much value by saving on cost, by doing work themselves, by negotiating and finding deals on different portions of the home so that they’re able to have the quality of home at the price that they want.
Now, of course different market conditions will dictate different values of a home and the location of the home. But in general, our customer base is doing it for an equity position and to have a lower cost — to save money. That’s why they’re doing it, as well as knowing what they want and being specific in getting what they want.
But the whole thing on saving the money is literally by coordinating it themselves, doing some of the work themselves if they choose to, and then just being good people and understanding the costs of a home and paying for what makes sense.
In any industry — your car, your shirt, the hamburger you bought for lunch — there’s a level of profit there. The hamburger is the perfect thing. You go out for a hamburger now — it’s 20 bucks. But I’m sure if you made that hamburger at home, it’s probably $4 of ingredients.
Interviewer: At the most.
Steve Tuma: Yeah. Now the restaurant’s providing service, supposedly, and there’s real estate, and a plate that they serve you on. But when you look at it, if you did it yourself, there’s a substantial difference in what the cost is to do it compared to what you get charged.
So in a similar sense, it’s the same thing with the owner‑builder situation. A lot of our customers will go through, like say in the case of windows — there could be a substantial swing in the cost of windows.
Builders generally put the builder grade, which is actually to the lower side. But our customers might go for a different grade window. Maybe they do need the least expensive one, but they’ll go through and negotiate, work to make sure that the windows are the type that they want. And if they have to work the budget or something — maybe they’ve got to change the design of a window here, change the feature of a window, but whatever — they end up getting the insulated performance values, the design they wanted, the cost that they want. And that’s the nice thing about it.
And the other thing is — there aren’t really change orders there. If they plan the house out right, they should just be able to execute it. Instead of… a lot of people, they tell me that if they work with a general contractor, everything’s a change order, and it creeps the price up over time.
So with our situation, a customer can pre‑plan the home, pre‑budget it, stick to that budget, and control the budget.
So there’s a lot of facets to that simple question of, “How do you get the equity built in?”
Interviewer: Well, we’re talking real‑world savings here.
So let’s get to the subject of developer costs and let’s compare a Landmark Home and Land Company kit home to a traditional stick‑built home when we’re talking developer costs.
Steve Tuma: We do work with some professional builders. We work with customers that have built multiple homes with us — some of them 20 homes. They just live in one, then move out and help a relative build one or something.
And what they tell us the advantage is — and I believe it’s true — is that if someone goes and gets an architect, a structural engineer, all these different people and put it together, the costs are just high — and it’s still not controlled.
Because a lot of the people — like an architect — will give you a set cost or charge per hour. So you call your architect — it’s like calling your lawyer, you get a bill. And it’s not always set and controlled.
So what ends up happening is people go through and plan these, they get the cost of the design, all the design elements — is it accurate, is it complete, are the details there to properly budget? And then, with stick‑building, they don’t give set prices. They might say, “Oh yeah, we could do it about this price, but if this changes or that changes…” The price isn’t there.
So in general, there’s just a lot of open‑ended details. That’s why people say, “Hey, when you build, prices go up.” Well, a lot of that’s because of lack of planning and lack of good information upfront.
So that’s it. So in our case, where we’re able to go through and help a customer, is to give a guaranteed cost for all of those details. We’ll spend the time to design a home — if they need to do two sets of changes or ten sets of changes, it’s the same cost. And that’s why we’re able to give an extremely competitive price that pretty much all customers tell us they wouldn’t be able to achieve by working with a conventional stick‑builder.
And that’s it — just our buying power, the way we’re set up, the way our internal processes work, of all the architectural, structural people working together. We’re able to control that.
So that’s the key element, where in other systems there’s not a set cost. People might get an estimate. Like if you go to a lumberyard — you go there, they’ll say, “Oh, this is the price,” and on there it’ll say, “The price is good for seven days.” So it will likely change. And that’s something that will affect someone’s budget.
So that’s how we’re able to go through and really help someone get it put together — to give a guaranteed cost, explain to them exactly what it is, and then give them a complete set of plans so that they can go get estimates for other materials.
Now, I know someone out there is saying, “But I can go online and I can buy this set of plans and it’s only $500 or $1,000.” And we get those plans, and you know what — there’s a way to save money, and then there’s a way to be, what, penny‑wise and pound‑foolish, is a phrase I used to hear.
You don’t always know the quality of the plans. And if you look at those, it says:
- You should have a structural engineer look at them
- You should have someone look at them, make sure they’re fine for codes
- You should check this, you should check that
So in a sense, they’re selling you an idea — or possibly a dream — but you still have to go through and do all the work to make sure that it’s put together properly.
And that’s the point that people don’t understand. The reason that people go over budget is they don’t pay attention to the details up front, know what they’re building, and follow through with that plan.
So if you have plans that aren’t clear, if you don’t know what you want to build and you want to constantly change, it will cost someone more. With our system, we’re able to work with a customer to find out what they want up front, put it in the design, work with them, spend the time to make sure it’s what they want. If they need to change it, we could adjust it on paper so that they know the cost. They know the cost going in up front. And that is the key element that’s very important, that’s there.
And there’s also other things that customers tell us. They’re like, “Steve, I’ve never seen a structure like this. It’s solid.”
So we’re not here quoting something and then sending something that’s substandard. We have a very solid structure that’s reviewed by the engineers, the building department — make sure it’s solid. There’s no corner‑cutting. It’s our reputation. We’ve been doing it for 33 years, and we’re in business and we get repeat business because we take care of people, we do what’s right, and enjoy the process — to make sure that a customer gets their proper home.
Interviewer: You know, we were talking about the price of hamburgers now — you go in, it’s 20 bucks. But how does Landmark work with some of the craziness that’s going on in the world right now — and some of the, whether they’re good or bad, policies, let’s say tariffs, or let’s especially talk about the price of wood over the last few years? How do you guys navigate that? Do you see it coming, or are you hit blindsided sometimes and you have to adjust that? How do you guys work?
Steve Tuma: We’ve got great buying operations. We’ve got great design operations. We understand our business. We take care of it.
And you know what I’ve learned in 33 years of doing this — founding the company and growing it and taking care of customers all over the 50 states — there’s always something.
So it’s interesting. Someone will say, “Well, it’s this, it’s this.” I’m like, “Can you name me a five‑year period where it was just all roses and everything was great?” There’s always something. If it’s not this, it’s COVID. If it’s not this political thing, it’s that. Or it’s this weather thing or natural disaster or this or that. There is always something there.
Now, I don’t know if it’s really there, or it’s just the nature of capitalism in America making it there. But the point about it is: we’ve learned one thing. Get up, do your job, take care of the customer as well as humanly possible, make sure everything’s done, get a good night’s sleep, and do it again.
Because you know what — if someone’s saying, “Hey, lumber went up because of this, and someone went up because of this,” I just want to hear what their excuse is next month, because there’s always something there.
So we’ve just learned how to navigate it. We run a lean and efficient business, so we can weather the ups and downs and navigate the processes with people to get them taken care of.
So when we’re sitting here telling a customer, “Hey, you’ve got a price lock for a certain amount of time for the full design, engineering, materials of this,” we have to be pretty good at what we do.
I don’t think that that service is available anywhere that I’ve heard of. There might be people that’d be like, “Oh, I’ll sell you wood within this time period.” But who’s doing all the design, the structural engineering, the energy codes, the site plan, and getting you taken care of?
So the big value there is tremendous. And when you split out everything that we’re doing for a customer, we just need to make a fair profit, move forward.
But fundamentally, if someone could tell me a five‑year period where there hasn’t been something, you just have to set your business up to navigate it. That’s why we’ve been around. We don’t worry about, “Hey, what person said this, what person said this, what disaster happened four years ago, what might happen in five years.” Because we know one thing: something is going to happen. We just don’t know what it is.
But what we can control is taking care of customers, designing cool homes that make sense for a customer and the land that they’re building on, give them a fair price, and just take care of it.
Interviewer: It’s always something, isn’t it, Steve?
Steve Tuma: Yeah, it is. And what we’ve found is that “something” is just — take care of the customer and have a good time doing it. Enjoy the process of helping a family get a home that will change their life. That’s what it’s about. So what if a board goes up a dollar — it’s not the end of the world. It’s better to make sure that the family gets the house that they want. That’s where you’re really making a change.
Interviewer: All right. Well that’s going to do it for another amazing edition of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show.
But before we let you go, Steve, once again, please let the listeners know how to find out more about Landmark Home & Land Company.
Steve Tuma: Well, the best thing to do is check out our website at LHLC.com. It’s Landmark Home & Land Company, but LHLC.com. You can see all of our plans, our videos are there, our podcasts are there, discussions on what we supply, how we supply, what we do are all there.
You can then submit an email through there. You can pick a plan out and submit an email on a specific plan. Or you can give us a call — Mike will answer the phone at 800‑830‑9788. Again, that’s 800‑830‑9788.
You can call, talk about your project. Once you get to a certain point, you can transfer to me, and then I help them through.
But if someone wants to call me directly, they can call my direct cell: 708‑205‑2043. And the important part is getting to know each other, understand what a customer’s looking for for their family, and help them go through and make the project happen. We’re here to help.
Interviewer: It’s comforting. I think building a new home can be a daunting thing. You always just seem to have that answer that covers the problem, and that’s a good gift that you guys have at Landmark.
Steve Tuma: Well, the thing about it is, we’ve been involved with a lot of projects. There’s always a little bit of a curve ball. Chances are we’ve seen it before and we can help a customer through it. And by proper planning, support, knowledge, you can avoid a lot of those details. So it’s a big undertaking, but it’s exceptionally rewarding. People love it.
Interviewer: Excellent. And there it is.
Thank you again, Steve, and thanks to all of you for listening to the Panelized Prefab Kit Homebuilding Show.
So for Landmark Home & Land Company President Steve Tuma and for myself, have a great week and we will see you next time.
Thanks again, Steve.
Steve Tuma:
Yeah, thank you. This was a really interesting one, a different angle than we’ve discussed previously. Thanks.
