From Spec Homes to Custom Dreams: Anthony on Building Luxar Homes with Quality and Trust

Quinton Comino: Hello, everybody. My guest today is Anthony Yameen, the founder and CEO of Luxor Homes. They’re a custom home builder in Central Florida, specifically Lake County. One thing that he says—which I think is so good—my reputation is only as good as the last home that I built. And that’s just exactly what you want with a custom home builder because they’re so specific—down to every detail, every inch quite literally on that floor plan, every color in your kitchen, your walls, your bathrooms—all of that.

Quinton Comino: So reputation is very important to Anthony, and you can just hear that come through in the way that he talks. He values what he does—he takes pride in his work—and he cares for the customer. So if you’re looking for a custom home builder in the Central Florida area—or if you just wanna hear what a custom home builder should sound like because you’re interested in getting a custom home done—listen to this podcast, you’re gonna learn some things.

Anthony Yameen: My company is Luxor Homes. My name is Anthony Yameen. I’m a residential contractor, and I run the business with my wife Laura. We started this about eight years ago now.

Anthony Yameen: Yeah. We kinda come from a family of small-business owners. My dad ran a printing press—his own business in New York. When we moved to Florida in the later years of my mom’s life, she ran a seamstress business here in Clermont—in downtown Clermont actually. And Laura—her dad has been in construction for forty years and has ran his own business for the past twenty-five years.

Quinton Comino: Oh? Yeah. Wow.

Anthony Yameen: Yeah. So they kinda led the pathway on what I think both of us are on now. And their biggest focus was pleasing the customer. And I think that’s a big takeaway for us and what has helped make us successful.

Quinton Comino: Yeah. I like that—especially custom homes. You have a very specific customer—they know what they want—and you aligning with that is really important.

Anthony Yameen: A big thing we always tell clients—and we kinda joke about it but it’s true—like by the end of this we’re probably gonna be family because we’re gonna be talking to each other like almost every day—a couple—no a couple times a week. When that goes away it’s almost like you know—he’s not calling me today—what’s going on?

Quinton Comino: What’s going on? Yeah—where did you go Anthony? Hey Mr. Quinton—that’s funny man. Mr. Drew—you know so my brother he does modular homes up north and he does a whole project—it’s just a little different than a custom home—though you can get pretty custom with them that’s for sure. So he kinda gets a whole range of customers but he had a closing one time and you know he had a good relationship with the customer.

Quinton Comino: And the closing agent was super surprised that they had a good-standing relationship and she was like you know most of the time when a builder closes here with the homeowner like they don’t have a good relationship because there’s so many ways that things can go wrong with building a home—there’s only a couple ways that can go right. And so by the time it gets finished like sometimes they’re at odds—but he wasn’t. And so the closing agent was surprised.

Anthony Yameen: Yeah. It is—because you’re kind of forced into a relationship and you’re learning each other as you go.

Quinton Comino: Yeah. Yeah—that’s too funny.

Anthony Yameen: Do pick each other out in the beginning obviously—but you don’t know each other’s you know personalities until you really get into it.

Quinton Comino: That’s too funny. But so you didn’t start with custom homes though—well you started doing—you were mentioning before jumped on—you were doing spec homes to start.

Anthony Yameen: Correct. So our father-in-law kept pushing us like hey—Ocala seems like a really good opportunity—look into it. And he harped on us for about a year before we took his advice and started driving out there—doing some research—finding out about the community—what was happening in that area. So we finally decided to take the plunge—buy four lots and build on three of those lots. So we started with three homes—the same house—a spec home—built it on three different lots. They were scattered across the Ocala area.

Anthony Yameen: And one thing we learned very quickly—was we probably should have started with one and not three.

Quinton Comino: Yeah.

Anthony Yameen: Because first mistake that was made—three times.

Quinton Comino: Yeah—ouch.

Anthony Yameen: Yes—you know the cost of time and money—was times three. So what we did—we decided to once we made that first initial big mistake—we decided to stagger them. So we saw construction on two of them and delayed each one by three weeks—and helped us save money when we worked out all the kinks on the first one.

Quinton Comino: That’s really good. Yeah—what was that—a building mistake? Was it a zoning mistake? What one particular—

Anthony Yameen: There were some blueprint mistakes.

Quinton Comino: Yeah.

Anthony Yameen: Yeah—and obviously when we go through—when you submit to you know the building department—they review everything to make sure everything looks good. But at the time there was a lot of things that were overlooked—and obviously we didn’t catch them either. And we were starting off and we didn’t know to look for all these things—obviously we know now—we learned on our dime and we don’t make anything like that now.

Quinton Comino: So what in particular was it—like hey this is a half-bath and it needs to be a full bath—or was it like hey we don’t have—

Anthony Yameen: The—the rear—we do block construction. But on those first three houses the rear wall where the slider was going—it was kind of an interior wall because the roof extended past onto the patio. And that rear wall wasn’t lining up with the trusses that were engineered. So where the trusses are supposed to meet that wall—it didn’t meet. And we couldn’t just cut trusses because then you’re messing up the engineering—it was very expensive to have that—

Quinton Comino: Oh man—you made that mistake three times—like okay—pause—pause—pause—pause—pause—pause—yeah—oh man.

Anthony Yameen: And—and—

Quinton Comino: You did this with your wife?

Anthony Yameen: Yeah.

Quinton Comino: Yeah—so was it you or you? Like who—who took ownership for that mistake?

Anthony Yameen: Who took blame?

Quinton Comino: That’s tough to build with your wife man.

Anthony Yameen: Yeah—we actually didn’t point fingers on that one—we were just trying to figure out how to make this work.

Quinton Comino: That’s awesome man—I love that.

Anthony Yameen: You know—how do we fix this? We reached out to the engineering company that did the trusses—reached back to the architect—reached back out to the other engineer—just worked with everyone and the county to get it right at a minimal cost.

Quinton Comino: That’s so good man—I love that. No—that’s fantastic. Building houses—it’s stressful—that is—that you put a lot of stress on your relationship. And I’m sure you’ve noticed that even with your customers—like it’s just a stressful thing. If there is an irreducible complexity to it where it’s like hey we have made this as simple as we can—there is a component of stress that you’re just going to experience with building a house—like you can’t avoid that.

Anthony Yameen: Yeah—it can’t be avoided—correct.

Quinton Comino: That’s too funny. But so you were—you were going through—you learned some on your spec homes right? You had those three you’re doing at the same time—four lots starting to build on three—then you spaced them out a little bit so that you could maybe make the mistake once instead of three times—pick up there and just tell me you finished those lots and sold them and then started doing custom homes—how did that develop?

Anthony Yameen: So we kept—we kept building in Ocala for a while. What happened was there was a lot of builders—there was a lot of competition that was created in that area. So a lot of builders were coming in doing the same thing.

Quinton Comino: Mhmm.

Anthony Yameen: One time where we were purchasing lots you know for maybe 7 to $10,000 a lot—the lots began to cost 25,000 up to 50,000.

Quinton Comino: Oh wow.

Anthony Yameen: And there just wasn’t much of a profit there anymore—it was hard to provide a quality home and be competitive because our prices now were above what you could buy a home over there for. And our sold—our homes was the quality but it took a while to sell them—they were sitting on the market longer.

Quinton Comino: Yeah.

Anthony Yameen: Because it was our own money and we’re having money sit out that long—it became difficult to just make that our only—like make that the only thing we do in business.

Quinton Comino: Yeah—why did you switch to custom homes instead of maybe that a more affordable home or just something entirely different—some other you know commercial buildings or something else?

Anthony Yameen: Well like I’m a residential contractor so I don’t have a license to do commercial. But we get to like show our quality through the custom route. So if we did affordable housing we would have to cut some things that we really like to do to be able to make a profit.

Quinton Comino: Mhmm.

Anthony Yameen: So in the custom route we’re allowed to showcase those things—we had a big growing pain for us was finding the right people to do what we wanted—so finding the right supplier—

Quinton Comino: I get that for sure.

Anthony Yameen: Finding the right subcontractors—so it was a slow growth through those three homes as well—you know finding people that really knew what we wanted in a home—the quality that we wanted.

Quinton Comino: Yeah—finding those contractors that aligned.

Anthony Yameen: And people that like their craft—people that really enjoy what they do. Because sometimes when it’s just a job—eventually it starts to show on the home when it does that. So sorry—so our subcontractors—they’re definitely not the cheapest subcontractors but they do really good work—and that’s why we built a really good relationship with them.

Quinton Comino: Yeah—so you see you have consistently the same contractors that you’re using—well would there ever be—I guess not really—there would never be a direction for you where you say we’re gonna do this—this is the type of floor plan we’re gonna do and you can do these customizations but you can’t do these—right? But you have to stick with this floor plan layout in such-and-such particular way—would that ever make sense?

Anthony Yameen: Yeah—so I think that it comes down to budget. So if—we’ll ask them to go to Pinterest—make a Pinterest board and add us to it so we can see all your ideas of what you’re thinking and what your style is. And then we’ll come together—we’ll have a meeting about it and discuss your ideas—what cost associated with those ideas—and they can make a decision based on that—what’s more important to them—make a compromise between both.

Quinton Comino: So then how do you—how do you get customers? Because you start doing custom homes—there are a lot of builders—there’s a lot of competition—people doing that stuff—I’m sure there are also a lot of custom home builders. So then how did you get those customers to give you a call—to say we want to use Luxor Homes versus someone else? It seems to me like my understanding of the custom-home industry is it’s very word-of-mouth—there’s not a lot of—there are people advertising for it and what have you but it’s like yeah we know these guys do really good quality and they let you customize to a degree that these other guys don’t—how did that work starting out?

Anthony Yameen: It was very word-of-mouth—we realized very quickly in the custom-home industry that home builders aren’t really trusted—they’re not just gonna call you and go with you with this big of a project.

Quinton Comino: That’s for sure.

Anthony Yameen: So it really—it really comes from word-of-mouth—so a lot of the homes that we built in Ocala because of our quality out there—some referrals came from those homeowners that bought those spec homes—real-estate agents in that area were referring to us as well.

Quinton Comino: Oh wow—so it’s mostly the referral business?

Anthony Yameen: Yeah—yeah—we do advertise but it’s harder to get a client that way—I think it means a lot when it’s referred by—

Quinton Comino: Oh yeah—you almost—your closing rate on a referral is just—you cannot compare it to someone who comes in via an ad.

Anthony Yameen: Yeah—yeah—because then you’re constantly jumping through hoops I think—because they’re also—they’ll be taken back—can I trust this person? Can I give—can I spend this much money with them?

Quinton Comino: Yeah—no that’s for sure—you know that’d be difficult. So then how did you—you learned some things in your own jobs—then you start taking on customers’ jobs—what did you learn as you started to do that? I would imagine some of it would be how to deal with the customers—how to present to them the right way—like oh they maybe don’t wanna be involved this much or they think they know what they want but they actually don’t until they get into it and realize oh no I don’t want it that way—did you find yourself having to tell the customers more what they need to get or sitting back and letting them decide more because home customers really know what they want?

Anthony Yameen: So our Tatiana—which is our manager—and she deals a lot more hands-on with the customer that way—she’s really good at asking questions and finding out what they really want. So once we get to that point and we’re already let’s say we’re halfway through the build or something like that and things start to change—she’s really good at finding out what the customer really wants at that point. So if there is frustration she’ll ask questions to find out what we need to do—what can we do to help because that’s what we’re here for—and how we can alleviate some of that stress.

Quinton Comino: Mhmm—yeah that’s good.

Anthony Yameen: So—because once we get to that point I’m more on-site making sure everything’s built correctly—and then Laura and Tatiana are doing more of the hands-on with the client.

Quinton Comino: Okay—so how many jobs would you at any given point? Custom jobs are a big deal—even just running one job is a lot—how many would you have at any given point?

Anthony Yameen: It would depend on the size of the project—so the size of the home. Yeah—so if we’re doing like you know ADU we can take on several of those at a time—but say we’re doing like a project that’s 8,000 square feet—these custom stairwells and a safe room and all these different things—we’ll probably only do three of those at a time.

Quinton Comino: Oh really? Well—yeah—so in a year period how many homes would you typically have? Do you have an average that you’ve seen between the more complex and the simple?

Anthony Yameen: Between complex and simple—let’s say full builds—probably five homes on average. And then in between we’ll pick up ADUs or renovation because those are a lot more simple—so we can pick those up and finish them pretty quickly and not really have to affect our new construction.

Quinton Comino: Yeah—so you are working with these contractors—you have the same contractors that you’re using—you got the framer—you got the floor guy—the electrician—the HVAC—and you’re working in a particular region—right? You’re not all the way from the Panhandle to Miami—so would it ever make sense for you to get your own license in those other trades—get your own framing crew—get your own concrete guys—would there ever be a time for that?

Anthony Yameen: It’s possible—but I don’t know if I would do that—it’s a lot more to manage—and if I already have a crew that I trust that will do a good job—then it’s less I have to check up on if I’m running multiple homes at a time—like because I’m thinking now if I’m understanding correctly—let’s say I’m building 15 homes at a time—and now I have to manage my own framing crew—and then have to worry about like oh well five people called out today because yesterday was a holiday—now I have to manage that and still make sure the quality of the home is done correctly—something is gonna have to give—

Quinton Comino: I see—yeah—you don’t wanna have to have that level of management—so then where do you see Luxor Homes in three years, five years, ten years?

Anthony Yameen: Obviously I want to see us bigger and keep growing—I don’t see myself managing those crews more than I manage them now.

Quinton Comino: Okay.

Anthony Yameen: Yeah—we really do like the crews that we work with—and a lot of them some of them have came from when we built our house—first project—we still use the same plumber that did our house then—does all of our houses now—we haven’t moved from him—a lot of other trades have changed because we’ve learned different things and how we want our homes to be built—but that’s just one example of how we’ve used him.

Quinton Comino: Okay—that’s awesome man—so you know growing consistency—you have a pretty well-oiled process right now it sounds like to build the custom home that doesn’t sacrifice on quality where you can give and take with the customer on hey we can handle a lot of these decisions or you can be super involved if you want to—it just depends on what you want and what your budget accommodates for—so you’ve got all that figured out—it’s just a matter of yeah we wanna do more of it—that’s how we wanna grow.

Anthony Yameen: Yeah—and I feel like we’re still growing because we want to be bigger—and I think that comes with consistency—just being consistent—making sure our homes are built to the quality we want them to because I think that speaks to our reputation—and with us being community-focused and really trying to develop a name for ourself in this area—I think that’s the best way to do it.

Quinton Comino: So here coming in closing—tell me the area that you work in and then if that’s going to grow in the coming months or years.

Anthony Yameen: So yeah—so South Lake County is where we’re primarily based—so that includes where I live in Clermont—Groveland—Minneola—surrounding areas to that—Orange County—we’ve done a few things there as well—and we’re thinking about maybe expanding into Tampa area because I know that’s a big area that’s growing—and then it’s not too far from us where I can still manage those projects.

Quinton Comino: Yeah—yeah you could—so if a customer was interested in a price range for let’s say a 1,500 square foot home—would you be able to give a price of yeah you probably could end up between here and here based on the builds you’ve done?

Anthony Yameen: We could—yes—we like to emphasize the land plays a big factor into where you’re gonna build your home—so with Florida we just have so many different types of elevation—where I live in Clermont it’s very hilly—like you can build on a hill where maybe five miles down the road you can be in the swamp and wetland—and you have to stay a certain amount of feet away from wetland—and it really can determine cost if things can change drastically.

Quinton Comino: What are some costs that you’ve seen?

Anthony Yameen: So one house we built here in Clermont—the clients wanted to build—they purchased a lot with a pretty drastic elevation change—they wanted to build on the hill—typically you could do a two-story—on those the most functional thing to do or economical I would say would build into the hill—build on a two-story with the top floor as a walkout—they didn’t want a bottom floor so they wanted just a ranch-style home—it took almost $100,000 just to get to slab.

Quinton Comino: Wow—yeah that—yeah because it’s kind of a strange—

Anthony Yameen: The stem wall—all the gear we had to bring in—I think one side of that stem wall was about 12 feet tall.

Quinton Comino: Wow—they really—well I mean I would want two stories—I mean who wouldn’t?

Anthony Yameen: Yeah—they didn’t want it—yeah—wow.

Quinton Comino: Have you had any—have you had any trouble with wetland mitigation and that bringing costs up?

Anthony Yameen: No—because we have looked at land and we’ve helped our clients look at land before they make purchases and kinda navigate them away from those things.

Quinton Comino: Yeah—just because you know the headache that it’s gonna cause.

Anthony Yameen: Yeah—and that’s what we kinda tell them—like if you haven’t made a purchase of land yet—just bring to us land lots that you’re looking at—we’ll do some quick research on it and let you know hey you could do this but this might be the extra cost associated with building on this property.

Quinton Comino: Yeah—that’s good—so you have a lot of experience in that—you can help—because customers I’m telling you—there’s nothing against them—they don’t know—in a lot of cases they have no idea—we’ve had customers approach us—yeah I got a property—I wanna put a mobile home on it—and they don’t know about zoning and they’re in the middle of a development—and I said you’ve got homes next to you I mean site-built homes next to you—custom homes next to you—you’re not gonna be able to put a mobile home there as much as I’d love to—so we tell them no.

Quinton Comino: So we do see that—or you know some of the worst ones—they’ll come to us and they don’t realize they have wetlands on their property until they start trying to get the permit for the home that they want—whether or not you know maybe sometimes they bought it maybe they haven’t yet—because then they go apply for that permit and they realize they have wetlands on the property—and then they realize that property is basically not worth anything—those are bad—that’s unfortunate when that happens—so you just gotta be aware purchasing property in Florida—you just need to know what you’re getting into.

Anthony Yameen: Correct—and we learned that in Ocala because we were building that—a lot of some of those properties when—and before we even call the county we would just look at okay who bought this property—and can we figure out why they’re selling it? If it’s someone that bought it twenty years ago and now they’re selling it—it makes sense—but if it’s changed hands three times in the past year then maybe there’s something going on.

Quinton Comino: Those are red flags.

Anthony Yameen: Yeah—and then you look it up and yeah the setbacks are really bad—there’s probably wetland and you don’t have much area to build on it.

Quinton Comino: Tell—tell us for those that are listening—what are some red flags or some things to look out for when you’re purchasing a property in Florida?

Anthony Yameen: So a few things that we look for or we’ll call about is setbacks—so figuring out what the setbacks are—especially on a corner lot—people tend to sell those for more but the setbacks are usually worse—so it’s—more restrictive—really—yeah paying attention to that especially on a corner lot.

Quinton Comino: Yeah—it might—

Anthony Yameen: Look attractive—they might not always be the best decision.

Quinton Comino: We’ve seen that before where it’s like you can’t—or what will happen sometimes is you might have the original—the subdivision was platted out to be all a certain size like say a quarter-acre—and then someone decided they wanted to split their lot up after they built the home because—and then you know an eighth of an acre—they split their lot in half or something like that and they try to sell that eighth of an acre—but the zoning requirements are that you have to have a quarter-acre lot in order to put a home on there—so we’ve seen some things happen like that—it’s not too often but it does happen—I actually know a couple lots that are for sale right now for mobile homes and I looked them up and I’m like I don’t think—because they’re pretty small lots—like I don’t think you can build on those.

Quinton Comino: And then it was a situation like that where someone parceled off part of their property and then they wanna sell it—and it’s like hey you can’t do that because the original restrictions on that property per zoning or that has to be a certain size.

Anthony Yameen: Yeah—and then those restrictions change—so with a lot that small maybe when it was subdivided you could do it—and now restrictions in that county are instead of 10-foot setbacks you might have 25—and now that lot is completely useless.

Quinton Comino: No—exactly—so and stuff like that happens because there’s so many moving parts—one department can’t check with the other department—can’t check with the landowners to make sure everything—you just have to know—you just have to know.

Anthony Yameen: Yeah—you have to be familiar—you have to be hands-on—involved in that local community to have such a good feel—like your thumb on it—to know exactly what’s going on.

Anthony Yameen: And sometimes that just takes not picking up the phone but just driving down there—walking in—talking to each department.

Quinton Comino: Literally—yeah—I know—sometimes it literally takes that level of involvement—say alright that’s it—I’m just gonna go down there and talk to someone.

Anthony Yameen: Figure it out—yeah.

Quinton Comino: That’s awesome Anthony—well thank you so much for taking time—that’s really good to—yeah—to hear because that sort of hands-on approach—that sort of attention to detail is so needed specifically especially with custom homes—like the customer just needs to know that their builder knows what they’re doing and is going to go to bat for them and figure things out and have the foresight to see hey let’s look out for this—let’s pay attention to these setbacks here—or hey that property might have wetlands—don’t purchase that—hey that’s really great to know with your builder—you just need to have confidence in them—like you were saying earlier customers they wanna know they can trust you—hey who are you—are you a good builder—am I just a paycheck for you—are you gonna take care of me—and it sounds like you really—you take care of your customers and pay attention to their needs.

Anthony Yameen: Yes—we do—we try—yeah.

Quinton Comino: That’s awesome—so anyone that’s listening—Luxor Homes in the Lake County area and potentially in the future toward Tampa—if you’re looking for a custom home reach out to Anthony—what’s the best way to get in touch with you?

Anthony Yameen: Best way is probably our website—so www.luxorhomes.com—we’re also on Instagram, Facebook—but all those links are on our website as well and our phone number is there as well.

Quinton Comino: Great—well thank you so much Anthony—appreciate your time today.

Anthony Yameen: Alright—thanks a lot.

Quinton Comino: See you.

Anthony Yameen: Bye.