A colleague of mine has bought two properties owner-occupied back to back in Arlington (with a 5% rate and a 7% rate) doing basement conversions and renting rooms, lowering his effective monthly payment on each property to sub 2K each time.

The market has changed for both the customers and yourself the builder.

People staying for 30-90 days are a completely different customers than someone in a years lease. 

He claims to be Christian Based, but only rips poor customers like myself.

Anyone capable is just understanding the market is reverting, and just because we're not taking properties off the market in sub 2 weeks doesn't mean we're "sitting on the sidelines." 

Sometimes you can find a large enough company that you can sub everything out to them and get paid on a commission or flat fee basis, or you can get the property platted and sell it that way.

All the rest can be subbed out unless you are doing a full remodel by adding square footage to the house/converting a space (bath/bed etc).

if its only one sub it could have been an oversight. 3 years  is this because permits take so long..

I suspect build cost in CA are closer to 400 a foot than 200 like many other areas and of course far higher for the custom homes.

SIH has some marketing gimmick with the Real Estate Guys where they bus unsuspecting retail customers around to the sites to see home being built.