Santiago Homes

COVER FEATURE

People shopping for a new home today have a variety of tools available. Thanks to Internet technology and an abundance of websites dedicated to real estate, searching for, and finding, potential options is easy. The challenge is choosing which of these options is the best choice. If you’ve narrowed your search to a few newly built homes, here are some key questions you need to consider. Is the home large enough? Is it in a convenient and safe neighborhood? Are the schools top rated? More importantly, did a reputable quality builder construct the home? This last question is critical because, since buying a home is the largest investment you will probably make in your lifetime, you want to make sure you are getting excellent value for your money—and a good opportunity to get a high return should you decide to sell.

Meet Santiago Homes, a residential and commercial construction company founded in 1998 by Jose Santiago Vielma. Santiago Homes is a custom builder serving the Coastal Bend area. The company specializes in bringing homebuyers’ visions of their perfect home to reality. “Our customers are people who want a home that expresses their own individual tastes and preferences,” said Vielma. “We enjoy working personally— one on one—with each of our buyers to learn about their needs. For us, building a custom home is a partnership with our customers in which our job is to guide them through the process from the concept all the way to when we hand them the keys, and to make sure they are completely satisfied with the finished home and have only happy memories of the experience.”

Jose Santiago Vielma, Founder

Santiago Homes has undoubtedly earned a reputation for excellence in customer satisfaction. While this may read like “marketing fluff,” a quick check with any of the company’s previous customers will attest to the validity of the statement. Vielma’s genuine and caring nature goes above and beyond when it involves the quality of his homes. He is a hands-on builder who takes pride in personally supervising every stage of the construction process to ensure that work performance is consistent with his company’s standards of excellence.

Most recently, Santiago Homes became the first builder in the Coastal Bend area to certify its homes in the BUILT TO SAVE ™ program. The BUILT TO SAVE ™ program is a voluntary regional energy efficiency program designed to differentiate high-performance homes from those built only to minimum code standards. To receive the BUILT TO SAVE ™ certification, a home is inspected and tested by a third-party energy rater to confirm that the home will perform better than a similar home built only to code. What does this mean for the homebuyer? Aside from the savings on utilities every month, a BUILT TO SAVE ™ certification means the home has tighter construction with better indoor air quality, more durability with less maintenance, and more comfort. As for resale value, high-performance certified homes typically command a higher resale value, and homeowners are given a certificate of guarantee signed by the RESNET rater as proof of their home’s high-performance construction.

Santiago Homes is currently building two BUILT TO SAVE ™ homes in The Grand Estates at Northshore, the newest phase of the Northshore Country Club. The homes rest on a superior concrete foundation

reinforced with rebar, which has become Santiago Homes’ signature slab. “The foundation is key to everything else we do,” states Vielma. “If it fails, everything else fails--so we do it right—right from the start. A rebar concrete slab will provide a stronger foundation that will withstand cracks to the foundation from the natural shifts of the soil over time.”

Aside from their two model homes coming soon to The Grand Estates at Northshore in Portland, Santiago Homes has other lots in the community ready to build on. Tour the new home community of The Grand Estates and discover its unique location. Located between the Northshore Country Club on one side and a municipal park on the other, this perfectly situated neighborhood is a great place to raise a family—close to schools, shopping, restaurants, entertainment, and a beautiful golf course.

Visit www.santiagoinv.com for more information, or call Jose S. Vielma at (361) 443-1212 and end your new home search.