Real Estate Developer Reveals What It's Like Building 8 Units At Once

A walkthrough of 4 newly built duplexes and what it takes to run 8 units at once as a developer.

Phase one at Fircrest is eight units, four duplex buildings, and they are at four different stages at once. Two buildings are in finish work, two are in framing about 45 days behind. This is what sequencing a multi-building project actually looks like, plus the real cost numbers.

Two buildings, two different looks

The first building mixes lap siding with board and batten for a more modern read, finished black on the lap and white on the batten. The second goes full farmhouse: light colors outside, lighter cabinets inside, warmer overall. The first will get green tile and wood cabinets on the interior instead. Metal roofs on both, which is a standing priority.

Exterior sequencing: gutters, then flatwork, then paint, then landscape

Siding finishes, then gutters get scheduled immediately, then all the exterior flatwork gets poured, then the whole building is painted, then landscaping starts. The order is not arbitrary, and the urgency is: the interior is moving fast, so the exterior has to catch up rather than become the thing holding up a listing.

Interior sequencing

Drywall is textured, in the garages too. Finish carpentry material, doors and trim, arrives right away and installers start on doors. Flooring and cabinets go in, and on the day flooring is installed it gets covered with a thin protective board so nothing drags across it.

What is left is countertops, then plumbing, electrical, and HVAC finishes, which take a few days, then paint, which takes 4 to 5 days and is the actual long pole. Two to four weeks to done.

Mixing finishes inside one unit

Oak cabinets downstairs with gold handles, black countertops, and a green tile backsplash wrapped vertically at the window. Black shaker cabinets upstairs to change the feel between floors. LVP in the laundry and water heater area with carpet in the bedrooms, and LVP in the bathrooms.

The bathroom access got moved during design because the original plan routed you the wrong way; now it opens from both doors. And closet space is non-negotiable: two sections of closet in the secondary areas plus a full wraparound walk-in in the primary.

How design direction actually gets communicated

Not by email threads. Arthur walks the unit, records a short video narrating exactly what he wants, and sends it to the builder. Real examples from one walkthrough: black countertops with no lip in the kitchen because tile backsplash is going all the way along; white countertops with a 3 inch lip in the powder bath and no tile; white quartz with a 3 inch lip upstairs so the kitchen reads differently from everything else.

And for the finish carpenter: make the first pantry shelf about 3 feet off the floor so it works like a counter for appliances, leave 18 inches above it, then run 12 inch shelves above that, keeping the space underneath open for storage. Plus a small crown lip on top of a drywall return, because drywall stains and chips there and paint over trim does not.

The cost numbers

Each unit is a 3 bed 2.5 bath at 1,500 square feet, so each duplex building is 3,000 square feet, 6 bedrooms and 5 baths total. The estimate was about $160 per square foot, including permitting, architectural, and all design fees, plus hard construction, but not the builder fee. That is $240,000 per unit, $480,000 per building, plus a 10% builder fee.

Actual is coming in closer to $142 per square foot. That is $18 a foot, $27,000 per unit, about $216,000 across all eight. The reason is honest: the market shifted, so construction pricing came down with it.

Watch more on Arthur's channel.

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