Dream Finders Homes has openly eyed Atlanta-based, energy-efficient homebuilder Beazer Homes since February of 2026. On Oct. 20, 2026, Dream Finders…
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Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey showed that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) is holding steady, averaging 7.40%.
“The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage remained unchanged this week,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s Chief Economist.
As of Oct. 15, 2026, the FRM held steady at 7.40%, up from last year’s average of 6.27%.
The 15-year FRM averaged 6.71%, down from the previous week’s average of 6.73%. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 5.52%.
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) recently released the AIA/Deltek Architecture Billings Index (ABI) for September. The ABI score dropped to 44.7 from 47.2 in August.
There is a slight silver lining in the continued decline: inquiries for new projects increased to 53.2. AIA reported a steady pipeline of future work, with backlogs stable.
Multifamily residential and institutional firms appear to take the largest hit against the current market conditions.
“This is an increasingly difficult environment for architecture firms,” said AIA Chief Economist Richard Branch. “Weakening billings are being compounded by a soft economy, challenging project financing and growing caution among clients. With fewer projects moving forward, there is little reason to expect a meaningful improvement in business conditions in the near term.”
Luxury custom homebuilding is no longer defined solely by expensive materials or larger homes. True luxury is the disciplined integration of design, construction, technology, craftsmanship and the client’s way of life.
My philosophy is that a custom home should be designed around the life that will unfold within it. Architecture can be visually impressive, but if the home does not function naturally for the people living there, it has failed to serve its purpose.
We begin by understanding how the client lives: how they entertain, where they spend time as a family, how much privacy they value and how their needs may change over the next decade. Those considerations should inform everything from the overall floor plan to lighting, storage, acoustics, technology, material selection and, of course, budget.
I also believe that design and construction cannot be treated as separate conversations. A beautiful concept must be technically sound, financially responsible and executable in the field. For me, that integration is fundamental to successful custom homebuilding. Design establishes the vision, but disciplined execution is what allows that vision to survive the realities of budget, engineering, procurement and construction.
A luxury home should feel effortless to its owner, even though an extraordinary amount of thought and coordination went into its creation. That philosophy also informs our business strategy in California’s current market, where builders must balance ambition with discipline. Construction costs, entitlement requirements, insurance considerations, financing conditions and long procurement periods have made predictability more valuable.
Our strategy has been to operate as an integrated design-build platform. By bringing planning, architecture, interior design, engineering coordination, procurement and construction management into a single coordinated process, decisions can be evaluated for design, cost, schedule and constructability simultaneously.
Transparency is equally important. Clients should understand what their budget covers, where uncertainty remains and how decisions may affect the project before construction begins. A realistic budget delivered early is more valuable than an attractive but incomplete figure that creates problems later. In today’s market, thorough preconstruction planning is not only preparation; it is one of the most important aspects of building the home.
Since we established the company, the market has become more sophisticated. Clients have greater access to design inspiration and expect a home to be highly personalized, technologically advanced, environmentally responsive and architecturally cohesive.
At the same time, luxury has become more understated. Many clients are moving away from features added for show and toward spaces that enhance everyday life: wellness areas, flexible offices, indoor-outdoor living, concealed storage, improved acoustics, energy efficiency and carefully integrated home automation.
Expectations for the building experience have also risen. Clients now expect visibility into budgets, schedules, selections, procurement and progress. We are no longer expected to deliver only construction; we must manage information, risk, communication and the entire client journey through a transparent, effective platform.
My advice to fellow homebuilding leaders is to build the company with the same discipline used to build the homes. Strong craftsmanship is essential, but it alone does not create a consistently successful organization. Continuous improvement is paramount in every aspect of the business.
Every project creates lessons about design coordination, estimating, procurement, sequencing, communication and field execution. Strong companies capture those lessons, refine their processes and carry that knowledge into the next project. Daily incremental enhancements lead to growth and development over the years. You also need documented processes, technology and systems, accountable teams, reliable financial controls, quality-assurance systems and communication emphasized at every step.
I would also encourage leaders to prioritize long-term trust over short-term revenue. Be willing to have difficult conversations early. If a budget is unrealistic, a schedule is too aggressive or a design decision creates avoidable risk, the client deserves to know before the problem becomes costly.
Finally, stay close to the work. As a company grows, leadership naturally becomes more removed from daily production, but leaders should never lose contact with clients, project teams and field conditions. Leadership in homebuilding means creating an organization where the system produces quality, not one where people have to catch every problem.
The future of luxury homebuilding belongs to companies that can combine creativity with operational discipline. Materials and styles will continue to evolve, but the fundamentals will remain the same: listen carefully, plan honestly, build responsibly, leverage technology and create a home that serves its owners long after the project team has left, built to last for generations.
By Harut Arzumanyan. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Arzuman Brothers and can be reached at harut@arzumanbrothers.com.
This story is featured in our October issue of Builder and Developer. Read the print version here.
Builder and Developer: Nautilus Homes originally built its reputation through smaller projects, with a focus on craftsmanship over scale. How did this approach influence your building philosophy in your current large-scale projects?
Ryan Perrone: In our early years, I was on every site, every day. That level of involvement allowed me to put my care into every aspect of the home, bringing slight improvements to small and big elements alike, which, when viewed as a completed project, created a better product.
That philosophy hasn’t changed as our projects have grown. What has changed is how we bring that same level of care into bigger projects and more of them. Larger, more complex homes require stronger systems, deeper planning and a team that understands and champions the standard just as clearly as I do. We’ve built that through better hiring, dedicated project leadership, rigorous pre-construction and consistent quality-control practices.
My role has evolved along with the company. Today, much of my focus is on the pre-construction phase, setting the standards, developing our team and continuing to push how we build through better processes, new technology and more innovative ways of solving complex construction challenges.
The scale of the work may be different, but the philosophy is the same: treat each home, each decision as if it was our home, and care deeply about even the smallest details regardless of who is watching or not, and the results will speak for themselves.
B&D: As a second-generation luxury homebuilder, in what ways have you seen luxury homebuilding evolve?
RP: The level of sophistication has changed tremendously. Homes are more architecturally ambitious, the systems behind them are more complex and clients are coming into the process with a much higher level of knowledge and expectation than they did even 10 or 15 years ago.
That has changed the role of the builder. We’re getting involved earlier, working alongside architects and designers during preconstruction to think through constructability, cost, performance and execution before those decisions reach the field. There is much less room for the builder to simply receive a set of drawings and figure it out during construction.
Technology has accelerated that evolution. While applications like Instagram are bringing a higher awareness of good design to clients and designers alike, we have also implemented 3D modeling to resolve issues digitally early. We model every project in BIM before construction, use robotic layout
and lidar scanning in the field and have far greater ability to identify conflicts and verify conditions before they become problems.
At the same time, resiliency and building performance have become increasingly important, particularly here in Florida. Understanding how to resolve these concerns through basic, logical, tested approaches is equally as valuable. That really comes with experience of seeing how different properties perform over the years and staying on top of the latest materials.
What hasn’t changed is the expectation of craftsmanship. The tools are better and the homes are more complex, but ultimately the responsibility is still the same: take an extraordinary design, understand the intent and execute it at the highest possible level.
B&D: How has Nautilus Homes tailored its approach for today’s modern homebuyer?
RP: Today’s luxury client expects a highly personalized experience, but they also want clarity. They want to understand where the project stands, what decisions are coming, what those decisions mean for cost and schedule and who is accountable at every step.
We’ve built our process around creating that confidence early. Every Nautilus project is modeled in BIM before construction begins and a significant amount of work happens during pre-construction to define scope, develop pricing, coordinate with the design team and identify major decisions before they reach the field.
That discipline produces measurable results. To date, every project has been completed within its approved control estimate and every home has been delivered on time or ahead of schedule. For a custom home, where there are thousands of individual decisions and an enormous amount of complexity, I think that kind of predictability matters.
Once construction begins, every home has dedicated project leadership and our clients have real time visibility into progress, budget, schedule and site documentation. The goal isn’t to make a custom process feel standardized but to put enough structure behind it so that the client can focus on the experience of creating something extraordinary rather than worrying about what comes next, or if they have enough budget remaining to splurge on their master closet.
B&D: Nautilus Homes’ Watersound received several awards from the National Association of Home Builders’ Best in American Living Awards. What does this recognition mean to you?
RP: We don’t do what we do for awards or recognition. Our standard is the same whether anyone outside the project ever sees it or not.
That said, recognition like this is meaningful because every project is brought to life by a team based on a client’s vision and in many cases we bring the team, from architect to interior designer and beyond. Many times these are different team members to better suit a client’s character, style, location, etc., but they always turn out to be amazing.
By the time a home is complete, countless decisions, details and moments of collaboration have shaped the final result. An award reflects the collective effort of the client, architect, design team, our team and the craftspeople who brought it to life.
I think of referrals and repeat clients the same way. More than 45% of our work comes from people who have either worked with us before or were introduced to us by someone who has. That isn’t why we hold ourselves to the standard we do, but it is proof that the standard is being felt beyond the finished product.
I’m proud of the recognition, but I’m even more proud of what had to happen to earn it. The decisions, the collaboration, the craftsmanship and the trust from the client. That’s the part that matters most. The awards are proof that the work stands up, but they’ll never be the reason we do it.
B&D: Where do you see premier custom homebuilding headed in the future?
RP: I think the biggest shift will be toward much deeper collaboration before construction ever begins. These homes are becoming more complex, architecturally, structurally and technologically. The old model of handing a completed set of drawings to a builder and figuring out the rest in the field is already a thing of the past.
One piece of advice I give anyone considering a custom home, whether they ultimately build with Nautilus or someone else, is to bring the builder in early. Almost everything that shapes a home is decided before the plans are completed. The earlier the builder is at the table with the client, architect and design team, the more opportunity there is to think through constructibility, cost, schedule and execution while there is still flexibility to make good decisions. Whether a builder has a system, is capable of performing to your project scale and whether they understand how to achieve the quality level is a fundamental gate; then, whether you can trust your builder becomes the most important gate to selecting the builder.
We’ve seen the value of that firsthand. Every client who has completed our full pre-construction process has moved forward into construction with us. To me, that says the work we do early creates confidence. It gives everyone a clearer understanding of what we’re building, what it will take to build it and how we’re going to get there, and it makes the experience of the build far more enjoyable.
I also think resiliency and long-term performance will continue to become more important, especially in Florida. Clients are thinking beyond aesthetics and asking how their homes will perform, endure and adapt over time.
At the highest level, I don’t think the future is about choosing between craftsmanship and process. The best builders will have to be exceptional at both: protecting the artistry and individuality of a custom home while bringing greater discipline, foresight and collaboration to how it gets built.
B&D: Is there anything else you would like to add that we haven’t touched on already?
RP: We’re constantly looking for ways to improve, whether that’s through technology, construction methods, stronger processes or simply finding a better way to communicate and serve our clients.
Innovation for us isn’t about chasing what’s new. It’s about asking whether there is a smarter, more precise or more thoughtful way to do the work.
Sarasota will always be home for Nautilus. It’s where we started, where we’ve built our reputation and where so much of our identity comes from. But we’re now taking that same standard into Tampa Bay and, over time, into other places where we believe our approach can make an impact.
I want Nautilus to help push this industry forward. If we can continue raising expectations for craftsmanship, construction and the client experience, and encourage others to raise theirs along with us, then I think we’re doing something that matters well beyond any one home.
Nautilus Homes’ Watersound is featured in our October issue of Builder and Developer. Read the print version here.
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