Home builder CRM vs general small business CRM, what I found

Generic small business CRMs work fine for the sales side of home building, but signed contract is where they stop making sense.

An 8 to 18 month project with constant client communication, scope changes, draw requests, sub coordination, and progress updates is not what a standard sales pipeline was designed for. You abandon the CRM three months into the build and run everything through texts and email, which creates a documentation problem the next time something is disputed.

Builder-specific software like buildertrend has change order management and client portals built around how a job actually runs, but it seems like the pricing and configuration are designed for production builders doing 30-plus homes a year, not custom operations doing 5 or 6 where most of those features will never get used.

So you're choosing between software that fits the front of the funnel and abandons you at delivery, and software built for a scale you're not at.

Anyone doing small volume custom home building, what are you using for client management past the contract signing?