New Home Inc. Cut Cycle Time & Recovered $1,840+ Per Home with Higharc Lot-Specific Plans

One year after adopting Higharc Lot-Specific Plans, New Home Inc. cut plan production time by 80%, sped up permits by up to 25%, and eliminated thousands of dollars in construction errors — saving $1,840 per home and $368,000 annually.

80%

Faster Plan Production

10 Days

Faster Permit Cycle

$1,840

Saved Per Home

The quality and consistency of plans have made a huge impact on the field teams. Dimensioning is cleaner, trades do less guesswork, and field errors have dropped dramatically. - Sean Wilson, Area Construction Manager

New Home Inc. is a privately held homebuilder based in Raleigh, North Carolina, focused on creating smarter, more personalized homes. The company offers lifestyle-driven floor plans and thoughtful options designed around how people live today. Combining production scale with a semi-custom experience, New Home Inc. stands out for its innovation, agility, and commitment to quality-from sales through construction and beyond

Location:

Raleigh, North Carolina

Company size:

Year founded:

2021

The Challenge

Slow, Reactive, and Error-Prone

Before Higharc, New Home Inc., a Raleigh builder producing 200 homes a year, had a plan production process that was holding the entire business back.

Producing a lot-specific plan meant starting from scratch every time. Engineering reviews stretched across weeks. Redlines traveled through email chains. Field teams carried oversized, hard-to-read plan sets and spent valuable hours hunting for basic dimensions.

When a start order dropped, everything else stopped — triggering a cascade of delays across projects in flight.

▸ Slow drafting turnaround
▸ Plan sets tattered with red ink and page references
▸ Frequent field clarification calls
▸ Failed inspections and schedule slips
▸ Costly foundation and construction errors

The Solution

The builder implemented Higharc Lot‑Specific Plans (LSPs).

Higharc automatically generates templated construction‑ready plans for each lot and enables real‑time collaboration between teams.

The result: faster plan production, simpler plans, and fewer downstream errors.

Stage	Before Higharc	With Higharc
Plan creation	Manual assembly	Automated generation
Permits	Slowed by complex plans	Faster approvals
Field usability	Hard to navigate	Clean, simplified plans
Redlines	Email threads	Real-time collaboration
Construction errors	Frequent	Dramatically reduced

Back‑Office Impact

Savings That Add Up Across Every Stage

$400

Drafting Capacity

8 hours of drafting time recovered per home, worth $400 in labor

$110

Drafting Cycle Reduction

5 days off the drafting cycle — $110 saved in carrying costs per home

$220

Faster Permits

Cleaner plans cut 10 days from permit review — $220 in carrying costs saved

$110

Printing Costs

Fewer pages across 6+ sets per home saves an estimated $110

$500

CM Return Trips Eliminated

10 fewer clarification trips at $50/hr — $500 recovered per home

$500

Construction Slippage

5 fewer days of confusion-driven delays — $500 saved per home

Simpler Plan Sets

Plan Type	Before	With Higharc
Lot-specific plans	12–15 pages	9–10 pages
Master plans	~75 pages	~20 pages

Field Impact

Cleaner Plans, Fewer Mistakes, More Time on the Job

Construction Manager Productivity

Legacy plans forced trades and CMs to interpret, guess, and call for help. Every clarification costs at least an hour at $50/hour. Eliminating 10 return trips per home saves $500 — and frees CMs to focus on building, not troubleshooting.

Construction Slippage Reduction

Higharc doesn't change how long it takes to build a home — it eliminates the unplanned stops. With daily carrying costs from $20–$125, five fewer days of slippage per home recovers $500 in margin.

Total Conservative Impact

Category	Savings Per Home
Drafting Capacity	$400
Drafting Cycle Reduction	$110
Permit Cycle Reduction	$220
Printing Costs	$110
Builder Return Trips	$500
Construction Slippage Reduction	$500
Total Saved Per Home	$1,840

‍

Eliminating Foundation Errors

From a Near-Certainty to Zero

Foundation errors were a recurring problem. Missing whole-house measurements made plans difficult to execute correctly in the field, and fixing concrete mistakes — between direct costs, rework, and schedule disruption — routinely exceeded $5,000 per occurrence.

Since Higharc plans hit the field, that number has dropped to zero.

"Almost every 'Oak' plan foundation had an issue a year ago due to the complexity of the plans. Since the Higharc plans hit the field, we haven't had a single foundation issue."

— Drew DiMeo, Plan Development Specialist → Operations Analyst

‍

Strategic Impact

Operational Transformation at Scale

The financial savings are real and measurable. But the bigger shift at New Home Inc. is operational — teams that spent their days reacting now have predictable, repeatable workflows.

▸ Predictable workflows instead of reactive chaos

▸ Reduced employee burnout

▸ Real-time plan revisions preventing downstream mistakes

▸ Higher production without adding headcount

▸ Faster community monetization

▸ Greater field confidence

‍

The Bottom Line

Every day a home sits unfinished costs money.

Every clarification call, rework trip, and failed inspection costs money. Every week a permit sits in review costs money. Higharc Lot-Specific Plans give that time back — and turn it into margin.

80% faster plan production

25% faster permits

$368K annual impact

‍

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homes designed in Higharc and counting

100

faster plan
design

faster go-to-market timing

reduction in soft
cycle time

This is where we should have been 20 years ago. We’re able to move at light speed compared to where we were.

John Foshe

Special Projects Coordinator, Buffington Homes

As soon as I saw the Higharc demo, I thought, this group has cracked the code.

Mitch Dalton

Chief Innovation Officer, Core Spaces

The savings of 15 days in our soft schedule allowed us to start and close 20 more homes than anticipated in 2023, generating over $10M of additional revenue

Marissa Kaiser

Process Improvement Specialist, Buffington Homes

What Higharc is bringing to the table is what customers have been wanting. People want to see instantaneously what is happening to their floorplan.

Emily Feagles

Sales Manager, Tim O'Brien Homes

The beautiful thing about Higharc is it starts with the salesperson building the end product with the customer and the plans come right out of that. There aren’t any lapses in the process.

Stew Walker

VP Construction, Epcon Communities

Completing the renderings and other marketing materials faster than in the past means we are launching each of those projects at least two months ahead of when we would have been able to do so with our old process.

Paul Hanson

President, Epcon Franchising

“If you think of Higharc as just a drafting tool, you’re only taking a sliver of the value." - Philip Lemperle, VP of Product

“Technology should not be a limiting factor in what we design. And with Higharc, it isn’t. It connects our plans, our visualizers, and our estimating and that’s what gives us the ability to move faster than 99% of builders.” - Kyle Bear, VP of Research and Development

"With Higharc, everyone can see the same model, even if they’re not a drafter, and know exactly what’s available and buildable from day one.” — Melissa Friesen

Melissa Friesen

Director of Pre-Construction, Crystal Creek Homes

"Our mantra was: grow with the same but happier people. We needed the tools to make that possible."

Marissa Kaiser

Process Improvement Specialist, Buffington Homes

The ability to make quick changes, reduce errors, and improve our processes is exactly what we need to grow our business.

Joshua Ream

Director of Operations, Eddy Homes

"The ability for Higharc to show our plans in 3D, to show options in real-time, and let buyers come out of an appointment with a really clear picture of what their home is going to look like is huge.”

Marissa Kaiser

Process Improvement Specialist, Buffington Homes

This is where we should have been 20 years ago. We’re able to move at light speed compared to where we were.

John Foshe

Special Projects Coordinator, Buffington Homes

As soon as I saw the Higharc demo, I thought, this group has cracked the code.

Mitch Dalton

Chief Innovation Officer, Core Spaces

The savings of 15 days in our soft schedule allowed us to start and close 20 more homes than anticipated in 2023, generating over $10M of additional revenue

Marissa Kaiser

Process Improvement Specialist, Buffington Homes

What Higharc is bringing to the table is what customers have been wanting. People want to see instantaneously what is happening to their floorplan.

Emily Feagles

Sales Manager, Tim O'Brien Homes

The beautiful thing about Higharc is it starts with the salesperson building the end product with the customer and the plans come right out of that. There aren’t any lapses in the process.

Stew Walker

VP Construction, Epcon Communities

Paul Hanson

President, Epcon Franchising

With Higharc, when you draw four walls, you get so much more out of it. That is the biggest difference I noticed right off the bat. That blew me away, and obviously, that saves time.

Taylor Kuhlman

BIM Designer, Epcon Communities

The Challenge

Slow, Reactive, and Error-Prone

The Solution

Back‑Office Impact

Savings That Add Up Across Every Stage

Field Impact

Cleaner Plans, Fewer Mistakes, More Time on the Job

Construction Manager Productivity

Construction Slippage Reduction

Total Conservative Impact

Eliminating Foundation Errors

From a Near-Certainty to Zero

Strategic Impact

Operational Transformation at Scale

The Bottom Line

Every day a home sits unfinished costs money.

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