Bay Custom Homes

Bay Custom Homes builds houses and develops subdivisions out of Middleton, run by Brent McKenelley, who the company says has been at it more than twenty years on the North Shore. The written record splits sharply. Two 5-star accounts sit on Houzz: in September 2015 a homeowner said the company built their house in eight months with no delays, on time and on budget, and that the crew stayed reachable throughout; in March 2017 a flooring supplier who had worked with Brent for fifteen years vouched for the standards and said clients come back to build a second home. Against that, a December 2021 Google reviewer warned that if you don't know your stuff these guys will take advantage of your money, and found Brent unfriendly. Google's own average sits at 3 across two ratings. That complaint is not detailed enough to know what went wrong, but its shape — pricing and how a homeowner is treated when they cannot check the work — is worth taking seriously on a custom build, where the money is large and the decisions are constant. Ask for a fixed-scope contract with an allowance schedule, and speak to two owners whose houses were finished in the last couple of years. On licensing, note what BuildZoom's page actually says: it recorded in August 2022 that a licence is not required for this contractor to build in Massachusetts. New home construction still involves a construction supervisor licence on the structural work, so ask who holds it and get the number. Six permitted projects appear in BuildZoom's records and the BuildZoom score sits at 90. For a ground-up house on the North Shore this is a small, long-running local builder — go in with a tight contract and recent references.