Custom-home builders have lost bragging rights to fancy flooring, classy countertops and built-ins. Now new-home builders such as Fieldstone, McMillin and Shea offer similar choices to home buyers, and they display their wares at state-of-the-art design centers. The advantage to the home buyer is that all purchases can be made in one place and rolled into the mortgage. The home builder, of course, reaps the financial rewards.

In April, Fieldstone opened its 4,500-square-foot HomeFitting Center in Carlsbad to supplant a previous 2,200-square-foot center in Del Mar. Fieldstone has a 10,000-square-foot center in Yorba Linda.

“It’s very similar to Home Depot Expo except we deliver the home with everything installed,” says Andrew Murphy, Fieldstone’s San Diego division president.

After selecting a home, Fieldstone home buyers visit the design center and work with a specialist to make basic, no-cost choices in kitchen cabinetry and flooring. They also can decide to upgrade, which is where the real fun (and the money) is. With a thick binder in hand showing a list of options and prices, the home buyer can roam the design center to view kitchens, flooring samples, fireplaces, plumbing fixtures and more.

“A lot of people spend what it takes to get into their home, then wait a few years before making improvements,” Murphy says. “What we’re trying to do is get people what they want when they first move in.”

Dennis Murphy, Shea Homes design studio director in Scripps Ranch, agrees. “The trend is for large builders to go in-house and service the customers themselves,” he says. “They can service their home buyers better, provide better service, and have more hands-on control.”

Evolution of Design Centers

In the late 1980s, buyers had few choices. “In some cases, they were limited to air conditioning or no air conditioning,” Andrew Murphy explains.

That all changed after the Internet explosion of mass customization. “home builders were a little slow to adapt in the early ’90s,” Murphy says. “By the late ’90s, we were in line with that trend in consumer demand.”

Melissa Mohr, vice president of McMillin and director of marketing, concurs. When the home builder first started building design centers, they were located in a garage space and included flooring samples, window coverings and a cabinet display, she says. “They weren’t very attractive. That was eight to 10 years ago; we weren’t offering a lot of options. Now that we’ve gotten into the options business, it’s a professional space. It’s treated like a sales office.”

Home buyers also can look at the options available to them by going to the McMillin Web site and browsing through the choices, costs and cutoff dates.

Unlike Fieldstone, however, McMillin has decided to keep its design centers on-site for the convenience of home buyers, Mohr explains. “We have talked several times about building one central design center,” she says. “Every time, we go full circle and come back to where we are.”

The options market has a trickle-down effect, Mohr says. “Home builders have come a long way in the options market. So have our subcontractors and our suppliers. At one time we felt a lot of resistance from these folks. At some point they realized there was a lot of money to be made.”

Home builders make money too, of course. Andrew Murphy explains that, according to the industry range, “we ought to be selling 10 percent to 20 percent of the base sales price of the home in options.”

What Home Buyers Want

With all these options available, what do new-home buyers spend money on? Not surprisingly, they tend to upgrade kitchens and master baths, reports Shea, McMillin and Pardee.

“Countertops, countertops, countertops, countertops,” says Stephanie Hallock, options manager of Pardee Homes Design Center. Pardee’s 1,700-square-foot design center is located in Del Mar.

Kitchen cabinets also are big sellers. New-home buyers used to have selections limited to whitewashed oak, light oak and dark oak, Andrew Murphy says. Now it’s between oak, maple, some white-on-white and various other stain styles, and different types of cabinet doors.

Mohr notes that electrical upgrades are extremely popular. McMillin’s design centers sell an abundance of electrical outlets, undercabinet lighting, cable outlets, ceiling fans, category 5 wire (for Internet access) and surround-sound systems, she says.

Doug Spence and Michael O’Brien recently went through McMillin’s design center at Liberty Station in Point Loma after purchasing a home at Beacon Point. “In the kitchen we went whole hog,” O’Brien says. They upgraded countertops and flooring, and chose a tiled backsplash. They also upgraded the master bath and converted a bedroom into a den.

“It was absolutely worth it to us,” says O’Brien, who says the two of them used to live in Temecula and have done home improvement projects before. “I don’t have enough time and energy to do that anymore.”

Up in Oceanside, Ron and Laura Hettinger went through Fieldstone’s HomeFitting Center after buying a home in Mission View Estates. “We were surprised,” says Laura of their experience. “Their showroom is very nice.”

Working with a design specialist, the Hettingers viewed several different kitchens, fireplace mantels, fixtures, you name it. As they walked through the showroom with their price book, they checked off items they liked.

“Then you get home and total everything up and go, ‘Woah.’ Needless to say, we had to revise our list several times,” Laura says with a laugh.

The Hettingers, who have owned two other homes, decided to make changes to their kitchen, upgrading the appliances to stainless steel, choosing an Italian stone for their countertops, and selecting hardwood flooring. They also upgraded the master bathroom and rolled the cost into their mortgage.

Not to take anything at face value, Laura compared prices on the Internet. “I did my homework,” Laura says. She was surprised to discover that Fieldstone offered lower prices than some home improvement stores. In addition, she didn’t have to pay for delivery or installation charges.

What the Future Holds

With home buyers’ demands for more options, new-home builders are stepping up to the plate. Shea Homes plans to open another design center in North County to accommodate customers, Dennis Murphy says.

As for Pardee, its design center in Del Mar will undergo a facelift. “We’re getting ready to redo and redesign the inside of it to show more of the choices the home buyers have,” Hallock says.

In this tight housing market with rising prices, it looks like the home buyer has one advantage. “Builders used to operate in a world of builder knows best,” Andrew Murphy says. “Now it’s buyers know best.”