Custom Homes

[Nate_D]

So a little back story before I get to my question and the topic of conversation...

3 weeks ago I was randomly looking at properties near me. HAR.com has a nifty little map search function. I was bored at work, and my girlfriend and I had been talking about moving recently. One of the first properties I click on is about as close to my dream property as possible. It's 3 minutes from my work, located in a very nice part of town, in a nice subdivision, and the best part, it is a double lot totaling an acre that is backed up to the creek I ride. You can't find this property out here for under a half mil. It's been on the market for about 9 months. After viewing it, I instantly knew I wanted it.

I took the next week off work and got my house ready to list. Put in my offer on the new house Wednesday and had mine listed Friday. Saturday morning first showing, I get a full price offer on mine. I take it. Still waiting to hear back from the selling agent for the new house. A few hours later I get the call that the seller went with the other offer. A lower offer, but non contingent. What are the odds, after 9 months on the market and no one buying, it gets two competing offers. Crazy. So now my house closes on the 10th of July, but I can't find anything I want to purchase.

My options are to settle for a house I don't really want, or find some land and build exactly what I am looking for. This brings us to our topic...

Have any of you built your own home? What level of involvement did you have? Would you do it again or recommend a friend go through the process? How much did you spend and what size house did you build?

I am looking at doing a build by owner type build, where I am the general contractor for everything after the framing, roofing, and exterior. While I have done a lot of remodeling myself, and any project I've ever come across I've been ready to jump in head first, the idea of building a home from the ground up myself is a little intimidating.


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[Mdavies_02]

I'm in the business of custom home building here in Ontario. Wish I could be of more assistance but at 2500km away I feel like everything I know of building homes has to be stripped down to its most generic core to be applicable for you.

The short of it to your question

- I spend 40 hours a week coordinating a single custom home for 6-12 months for my clients. I don't work on site during that time and aim to have 4-6 men there 5 days a week for the entirety of the project. If you can commit that sort of time to your own home while working you'd save a substantial amount of money.
- Decide how long you can take to get the project to occupancy - This will be a major factor in determining if you want a GC
- Hire an efficient architect, someone that builds the home in their mind and helps work out the kinks prior to building
- Only hire trades with referrals from other good trades/friends/family
- Time and material vs quoted jobs for subcontractors is a delicate balance - Supervision is key
- Start cataloguing finishes, looks, themes, fixtures you like now to save you time down the road. Having these locked in early allows you to look for a good price and account for lead times

I've deleted about half what I've wrote down making this, but hope you go ahead and build your dream house. Its been my goal for years as I find it one of the most rewarding things in life to create a home from scratch. The memories, the mistakes - Its all well worth it.

 

[imabadfish]

It sucks to miss out on your dream home but it may be a blessing in disguise... My wife and I were kinda in the same boat. We found a place that was 100% what we wanted. Like done-done down to some land with gated entrance, chicken coup, extra workshops, a pond with a fountain in it, a salt water pool with swim up bar, high end everything in the house. Move in and be happy. A contractor/builder owned the house so I liked to call it the "contractor's special" but it was also listed for 675K (by owner). We put in an asking price offer but still lost out to a cash buyer that didn't even bother with a home inspection... like went to the closing attorney 48 hours later. Might be a record. They only listed the house on facebook marketplace too. Crazy.

Fast forward a bit. We found a bigger piece of property 10 acres, with a bigger pond, large workshop, but the house is not 100% what we want. No pool. No chicken coup, lots of overgrowth with the landscaping... no high end stuff but it's less than half the price of the contractor's special. An 88 year old man was living here and it was neglected so a fixer-upper. But purchasing something half price left us funds so major renovations are already in the works. The point I'm making is if you find some property/house that doesn't seem all that appealing, consult with an architect.... Re-use the foundation. Re-use the existing structure and save $$. I'm not building from scratch, but I'm doing a substantial remodel. My price estimate is $120 per square foot. Not sure where I'll end up at but I'm sure it will be cheaper than building from scratch or paying for that other house in the long run. I just have to be a bit more patient. If you are willing to build from scratch then (it seems like) you have patience as well...

Not my house below but just an example of some of the crazy transformations that go on out there. I used to work in downtown Atlanta, drove by Arthur Blank's house/ neighborhood every day. This was a common occurrence. Small 3 bedroom brick ranches built in the 70s/80s turning into McMansions.

Good Luck!

 

[Jetfiend]

@Lumpy

 

[OCD Solutions]

If you have the time, I say go for it; but be warned, trades aren't what they used to be and you will have to stay on top of them like you would never have imagined.

We were house shopping for the last 4 years and could never find anything we liked so we started shopping for a builder. I grew up on a jobsite, (my parents were builders), and I knew I didn't have the time to manage a new construction.

We ended up discovering a new subdivision being built and fell in love with a floorplan, found one already under construction that backed onto a private pond and was everything we wanted. We wanted a smaller contractor but we were hooked so we went with the larger developer!

Fast forward a year and a half and we now have our dream home. Sounds good right? Well here's the kicker. We do have our dream house but it came at a cost. The developer is one of those big corporations that has great design teams, uses the best materials but then hires out the cheapest labor. The general didn't chase any of the contractors and so a ton of little things went unchecked. Don't get me wrong, we absolutely love our home but we see flaws everywhere and really question if we will ever get our money back out of this home.

We just went through our one-year warranty claim and they took 3 months to complete 2 of the 7 items we brought up, (mostly paint and drywall). We actually released them from completing any more because their follow up work was almost as bad as the original and the net result was the same. ie) scratched vanity mirror, they gouged the counter top while removing the old mirror and then the counter guys scratched the new mirror putting in the new countertop. SMH

I have a huge list of things that should have been fixed during construction that I am slowly working through myself so you either spend the time inspecting and correcting things daily during construction, or wait and have it done later at a much higher cost. Either way, you are going to have to put the time in at some point.

If we were to do it again, I would be the general.



We tolerated a lot more than we would have normally just because we knew we would never find another lot like this so close to all the amenities.

 

[SXIPro]

The good news is that you are not married yet. A house build or even a reno is harder on a relationship than infidelity. Not even remotely joking.

 

[OCD Solutions]

Our real estate agent said the exact same thing, so did a friend that does design work.

 

[Goldfishnado]

It's like when you first get your heart broken by your high school sweetheart. At first you are nothing but depressed and can't even imagine finding anyone better but then after some time goes by you find a different larger, slightly more used girlfriend that you dump all your money in to and settle for that. Then you die. Good luck!

 

[Ducky]

I say go for it if you can stomach the project, which based on the other things you have built, I am sure you can. I have bought 3 fixer upper houses over the past 3-4 years, and did "live-in flips" and moved onto the next property, which is currently a half torn apart lake house lol. However, once completed with this lake house, Ill have added probably 600-700K to my net worth and ive done all the work myself with the exception of a few small, critical jobs.

To me it boils down to do you want to pay top dollar for something you love or would you rather build more wealth by buying something that has the potential for you to love it? Good luck!

 

[smoofers]

I say go for it if you can stomach the project, which based on the other things you have built, I am sure you can. I have bought 3 fixer upper houses over the past 3-4 years, and did "live-in flips" and moved onto the next property, which is currently a half torn apart lake house lol. However, once completed with this lake house, Ill have added probably 600-700K to my net worth and ive done all the work myself with the exception of a few small, critical jobs.

To me it boils down to do you want to pay top dollar for something you love or would you rather build more wealth by buying something that has the potential for you to love it? Good luck!

I think @Nate_D has proven he has the potential to accomplish anything he puts his mind into. It all boils down to a time/value proposal to himself.

 

[ride4life]

I was the GC on my house. I took that 1948 800ft cape n leveled it down to 1 foundation wall n built 2850ft custom. 2 years of permitting because of wetlands laws than 15months of being out of the house. 1 month demo, 2 months of underground oil tank removal, 12 months of construction before I could move in with a temp co. It was another full time job with twice the stress. Staying on top of all details is huge and dealing with every problem every week. 1/2 way thru I was so sick of it but pushed thru. Final co was 22 months. I was so burn out at end I haven’t done anything in 2 years. Looking back it was hard but fun and I learned ton. I was lucky as I work for family n could leave work to meet contractors, my sales number were down 20% that year as I spent so much time on house.
My advice is you be prepared for hell, you have to be on top of everything and take everything one thing at a time, and plan on everybody not doing what they are suppose to
I plan to GC my garage build within the next year. Hope it will be easier the 2nd time, probably not. Haha

 

[mxmark4]

We built our dream house in 2016, I did lots of work on it from clearing land to interior work, data lines, tile hardwood, paver patio, decking,and anything that the contractor was going to charge me for I took care of. We used a contractor who I have known most of my life, but we felt in the end he didnt do us like he would have a stranger. He uses thebsame subs for his neighborhood builds, and they were really good until it came to finishing it out. There were tons of little nagging issues that he would have left unchanged if we had let him. And it was stupid stuff too, at the end of the day, I stepped up said screw it and did it myself to get the quality I expected out of the job. I did this build while working full time and going to night school, so dont let anyone tell you you dont have time to make it happen. It just takes a lot of heart a lot of desire and a lot of caffiene and cold beer. We love what we have built here, and if I had a chance to do it all over, I would have tried harder to find a way to do it without having to hire a general contractor, but my credit union simply would not finance the job without a real GC doing it.