Custom Builder Weekly - May 6th, 2026

Building on a flag-shaped lot | 6 homes on tight lots | Builder in 5: Collaboration Q&A

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Challenges and Collaborations

This week, we're looking at challenges in different forms. A set of case studies examines how teams around the country have worked on steep flag lots, narrow infill sites, and urban properties that butt up against elevated train tracks.

In our latest Builder in 5 Q&A, we learn about a challenging vision to enclose a 1915 log cabin inside a new mountain modern build (what the builder originally described as "kind of crazy"). That reaction makes the outcome worth seeing, because a long-running collaboration between the two firms is what made that idea find a way through.

"Once you respect each other … it really comes down to figuring out challenges," said the architect, Todd Smith of Syndicate Smith.

That thread carries into our latest Women in Residential Construction news: our virtual Women In Residential Construction Conference is set for two half-days; we'll be together online September 29–30, 2026. It's slated to be an exceptional program built around the professional and business challenges and opportunities shaping women's careers in building and design. More details soon.

— Pauline Hammerbeck

Signals: What We're Tracking

A $400 million ultra-luxury mega masion (ultra-mega? super-mega?) is vying to be the most expensive home sold in US history. The property sits on an 8-acre lot in LA, with 39 bedrooms, and touts its unobstructed views. [See the listing here→]

Heard!

"Awareness is coming around ... changing the perception of the industry is important."

Ed Brady, CEO of Home Builders Institute (HBI), in the latest episode of a new podcast, Ed Talks, discussing the skilled labor shortage and opportunities for the trades. [Listen to the full episode]

Since September, 19 homes in North Carolina's Outer Banks have been lost to the Atlantic. Now residents are lifting and relocating houses to safer ground, with warnings that 20 more could be gone by year-end. [Experts say the implications stretch up the entire eastern seaboard→]

Luxury homes in the Bay Area jumped an average of 13.4% in the two years following the launch of ChatGPT. In the two years prior, growth was consistent at all price points. [See why luxury is outclassing other price points, and how NYC, LA, and Seattle compare→].

A longtime Bay-Area resident listed his 14-acre Mill Valley estate on LinkedIn with an unconventional ask: Anthropic equity. This home is listed on Zillow for $4.8M, but he says it's a diversification play because he's "under-concentrated in AI investments relative to the importance of AI in the future...". [See what he's proposing→]