Atlas Custom Homes: A $1.8M Spec-Build Check on a Lake Travis Waterfront

Ignore flipping. What if you built custom luxury $5 million homes from scratch? That’s exactly what Atlas Luxury Homes is doing here in Austin. But building is tricky in 2026. — Nearly half of homes bought in Austin after the pandemic are at risk of selling at a loss. Redin says it is expecting a housing market reset. — I pulled up Zillow before driving here and then I sorted by the filter of only houses more than 3 million. There is a lot in inventory right now. How do we make sure if I write a $1.8 $8 million check here that it does sell in time and I’m not left sitting on that money for 2, three years waiting for a buyer. — Um, — all right. We’re going to go in here, find Kristen, and rock and roll. Hey, I’m Nathan. — Kristen, nice to meet you. — Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. I’m Nathan. Logan. Logan. Nice to meet you both. And thanks for letting us construction zone you guys are building, huh? — So, this is 105 Canyon Turn Trail. We’re building it for an investor client of ours. So, we’ll get it built, he’ll sell it, turn a nice profit. My husband Rudy and I own Atlas. We started it about 5 years ago, and we’ve been growing it very rapidly. We started from the ground up, like no investors, nothing. Bootstrapped it. Rudy went to every realer in town, — trying to see what if we could get a first client, one that actually had a client ready to go, — and they were investors looking to build properties to develop and sell. — So, we did the first house for them. completed um this house. It was gorgeous. 8,000 ft² in 6 months. And from there, they gave us an additional 10. — Additional 10 what? — Houses. — And more 10 houses. Okay. — Yeah. And more homes. We’ve really grown from there. People saw our work, saw the quality. — How did you and Rudy meet? Was it on a construction site somewhere or how did this happen? — Uh my background is actually tech. So him being in construction was like my first foray into that venture. But uh we actually met in college. We were acquaintances. And then he proceeded to DM me on various social media plat forums and finally I relented after 2 years and we’ve been together ever since. — What came first, the first build together or you guys getting married? — Us getting married and he had started uh Rocky Creek the framing company. We’d had our son on the way at that point and so he was working late every every night and he was like would be in the front yard with all his crews standing in the back of his truck holding our baby — and uh going over plans and barking orders — and it was his own framing company. — Yes. So he started that one and then from there we were able to start Atlas. — So different company. He sold that company. — No, we still own it. So they do our all of our framing. — Okay, got it. — Yes. So that’s how we’re able we keep all we have multiple different companies keep everything that we can in house. This is what vertical integration looks like. — Oh, yeah. No, it’s been fantastic. Um, you know, I know a lot of aside from timelines, you know, you run into material theft, but it doesn’t happen when there’s people literally on the job site every single day. — Is this a good time to introduce Logan? Yes. Logan, what’s your day-to-day look like at the company? — Just making sure that all parts are ordered, make sure everything’s here on time, and um just making sure that everything’s done at a high quality. — You know, people have built their own homes before, like, you know, maybe a small house. They know that there’s a general contractor that you usually pay like what 5 10% maybe to of the of the total build cost. Is that sort of a comp of what Logan is, but he’s in house? — Yes, he’s in house. He gets a salary and then we don’t really do licensed GCs so much in Texas. Anybody can become a builder, which is another reason like you really want to vet your builders. Uh we’ve taken over a few horror stories. — When was the first house built? What year? — 2021. — Okay. And what was that first deal? Explain to me when you guys like got the land. when you lock it. Tell me about it. — We found the realer that had, you know, was willing to take a chance on us. She had a client ready to take a chance on — Who is the client? Is it a home builder or an investor? — It was an investor. Yeah. And they were looking, they weren’t happy with their current builder. They were looking, they’d already purchased a couple different lots they wanted to develop. — How much did you raise from the investor or what did the investor put? — No. So, the investor paid the build cost plus our percentage on top of that. Our investor like clients, they typically take home about 40% uh returns. You mentioned your take rate on top of the cost. What is your guys' typical sort of is it take rate is the right is that the right term — cost plus. — Cost plus. Yeah. — So we’re we typically return uh or take home uh 20 to 30%. — Let’s say just for hypothetical sake that I the investor have put in a million bucks. It’s a $400,000 plot of land and there’s a 600k budget to build the thing. Just as an example, you guys would then take — So on the 600k you would add on the 20 or 30. — Perfect. Okay. And the investor would pay that or you would get that pay once it sells. The investor would pay that — upfront. — Yes, there’s a drawstr schedule so that you can see where your money’s going and Logan’s always uploading pictures. We have an app that’s also client facing so that you can go on there and you can see like daily photos of your projects. — It’s not just pictures. It also has the full schedule. So these homeowners, clients, and trades can all go in there and look at what their schedule is. They can approve of what date I put and we can adjust it accordingly. — Do you remember allin first year revenue for the business? — So first year revenue we made, we brought in $4 million. The profit on that was 20 30% so it would be 800 to like uh 1.2 million. — Insane. This is insane. That must have been great as a first year. You guys must — Yeah, we were absolutely thrilled and it definitely just gave us more momentum to push harder and continue. — We’re standing right now it looks like in what? The living room. — This is the living area. What’s the total square footage of the place? So this house under roof is 7,000 ft. What do you think this will end up going for if you had to guess? — I want to say it’s probably going to go for about 3.2 million. — Okay. You think it’ll go for somewhere like 3.2? — Yes. And he will make he will make his numbers for sure. — What what numbers is that investor typically targeting? Like 40%. — Yeah, he’ll get he’ll get about a 40% return on his money. — Okay. — And he’s already got the next house lined up for us. — How far away is this, by the way, to completion now? The audience is sort of seeing seeing where it’s at. Our realistic goal is about 2 to 4 weeks to completely finish this house. So, we broke ground on this house on March of 2025 and we’re expecting it to be completed by the middle to end of November. We usually try to get houses like this in about nine months from breaking ground. — And how many projects like this are you like right now? How many like this are you managing or is it just just this one for now? — So me personally, I’m only on this one. We do have two other project managers that are focusing on other builds as well. — How’s the housing market where you live? Leave a comment below. Take me back. You told us in 2021 was your first build. $5 million sale. The investor did great. 1.2 revenue for you guys. What did year two look like? Do you remember? So, we did about 8 to 10 million that year. Um, and we’ve actually continued to be able to grow, be profitable year-over-year. This year, or this coming year right now with everything that we have eight houses under construction at the moment, we have 52 actually uh signed up and about to like add onto our roster and start breaking ground on those, rolling out throughout 2020, end of 2025, beginning of 2026. — How much revenue do you guys think you’ll do this year? So this year we should do about $18 to $20 million in revenue. — And will you guys make basically 10 to 20% as your profit on that? Is that the right way to do that? — Uh yes. — Okay. So 18 to 20 million at 10% profit. That’s like 1.8 to 2 or 3 million bucks of profit for you guys. So take me more about how you think about growing the business, right? So is this a capital intensive business? If you had an extra, you know, you know, 500k, could you grow faster or how do you think about growing? — Yeah, absolutely. So yes, of course, building homes is very expensive. This is not not cheap by any means. Um, and then of course, you know, we pay our guys very well. — And how many people are full-time now today? — Nine. — Uh, we’re about to hire on several more project managers. — So, nine project managers, but I also know — Well, so there’s we also have um our in-house financial uh manager. We have um our VP of sales and marketing. — So, 12 12 13 full-time employees. And you mentioned you have eight projects going on right now. How many total contractors are active right now? — Oh, god. At least 100. — You Wow. It’s like — like like 100 people. Yeah. like not 100 trades. We will be scaling up as we uh onboard the 52 projects that are — uh getting started. So, okay. — Yeah, we’re excited to grow our team. — How do you think about growing the company? Can I do these because I want to see if there’s a way I could write a check that aligns with your ideas and have you guys execute and be able to grow faster. Is there like do you have any investors today or — uh No, we don’t have any investors in the company at the moment. We would like to get into building speck homes. we have but several uh different ones that we would be interested in developing. — I don’t know what that means relative to what you’re doing today already. — It would be the same kind of concept or if it was like a direct cash infusion into the company being able to leverage our own money then to build those spec homes — because right now a lot of our profits go back into just expansion because of the growth rate we have. — Mhm. So just to be clear what you’re saying is if you had a bunch of money in your own account, you would be your own investor instead of having to wait — in then we’d be able to sell it ourselves and that 40% would be ours. — Way more money. Do you have a plot of land picked out to do your first spec home already where I could potentially write a check and be the — It’s right on Lake Travis. I want to say it’s a little over an acre. — So, what’s the cost of the land if we were going to buy the land? What’s the cost of the land? — I want to say it’s 600,000. — Okay. And if you guys take the spec that you’re thinking about, like the perfect spec for that property, what do you think all in that cost would be? — So, we’re going to spend about 1.2 on the build and then the list price would be about $6 million. It’s Lake Travis waterfront. It’s gorgeous and it’s going to be a really stunning home to see from both the lake and the street. Would you want to go into this together or would you need the full $1.8 million from me? — Ideally, I would love to get the full 1.8 from you. — Yep. Yep. So, you guys don’t have cash right now that you’re sitting on where you’d want some of that extra upside. You need an investor like me, someone to do the whole thing. — I mean, yes, that would be fantastic. Especially with like the amount of builds we have coming on, the amount of people we’ve been hiring and our growth rate, a lot every a lot of our like revenue that comes in is going directly back out to being able to grow our business. — Okay. If I made a $1.8 $8 million offer, but I capped my return at 20%. And you know, you deliver usually 40%. — And what I said is, let’s do this together. Can I get a small chunk of equity, 1 2% in the main Atlas building group, and you guys get that extra 20% upside for yourself by capping mine? Is that general structure something you think you and Rudy would be open? — I would be open to it. — Well, my So, here’s my question. I pulled up Zillow before driving here and then I sorted by the filter of only houses more than three that are risk for 3 million. There is a lot in inventory right now. Yes. How do we make sure if I write a $1.8 million check here that it does sell in time and I’m not left sitting on that money for two, three years waiting for a buyer. — So, we’ve never had any of our homes just sit and sit and sit. Um, a great advantage of all of the networking we’ve done. Uh, we’re a part of a group that it’s we’re the only builder in the group and it’s exclusively for the top.1% of.1.1% of real litters in the country. I’ve had them move stuff extremely quickly before it gets on the market. We’ve had stuff move whenever it’s in the build phase, too. — Well, look, I I always, you know, we’re shooting and we try to do this like a show and I try to make offers on the spot, but there’s just like more details I want to learn here. And I haven’t met Rudy yet. I’ve really enjoyed like your vision, your energy. It’s super exciting, but I want to write a $1.8 million check here, but I want to sit down with you and Rudy first and actually go see the property together. Can we maybe schedule something and get that done in the next couple of weeks? — Yeah, I’d love to. — I am looking forward to learning more about the property. Uh, obviously Lakefront is extremely valuable. I have never dived into this space because I’ve never found a developer that I trust and I don’t want to get stuck managing contractors. So, I love I love how you’re vertically integrated. So, here’s my offer contingent on meeting Rudy, the full team, understanding the property, making sure we can get this sold in time for that 1.8 million with those, you know, $6 million returns. I’ll write the $1.8 million check. I’ll front it over there so we can like do that spec version together. But, I want to make sure you move the business in the direction that you and Rudy want, which is doing your own specs. Cuz otherwise, I’m your same business model. I’m just another investor and you’re doing another investor house. So, I really want to think about is there something I can align with the capital structure of the parent company through this deal as well? Yes. — So, that’s sort of overall where my head’s at. What do you think in general? — Yeah, I think that would be great. I would love to, you know, discuss it further with you and see what we can work out together. — Let’s do it, Kristen. It’s great to meet you. Congratulations. I can’t wait to see the property. If you guys like that deal, remember, new episodes drop every Wednesday. Click here to subscribe so you don’t miss out. Also, want to see more deals like this one? Click here to see the next deal immediately.