talk to me about building a house

[Deleted]

My mother said that if your marriage can make it through building a house together you can make it through anything. DH and I will buy lol. That's all I have to add.

[emjacobs]

What do you want to know? We built two years ago, semi-custom.

[ProfessorArtNerd]

First, you need some wood. And some nails.

[ProfessorArtNerd]

Haha! Srrrrrrryyyy

[psychmom]

Does it cost more to build a house? Can you negotiate a price with the builder like you can a seller of an already existing home?

[Deleted]

What are you looking to build? Custom, semi-custom, tract home? Have you researched builders in your area?

[emjacobs]

May 4, 2013 23:11:54 GMT -5 psychmom said:

Does it cost more to build a house? Can you negotiate a price with the builder like you can a seller of an already existing home?

Depends on what you do and where you are, in my location it was actually a little cheaper.  Yes you can, sometimes even more so.  You can negotiate upgrades into the price, the builder may not come down on the actual cost but will upgrade certain finishes. 

I would absolutely do it again but would do things differently. 

We built a 2500 sq ft 3 bed 3 full bath rambler on a finished basement, on 2 acres. We upgraded carpet padding (strongly recommend), put fans and / or overhead lights in all rooms, front porch and back deck, finished basement, opted out of the appliance package, upgraded a few cabinet features, tankless hot water heater, upgraded the hard flooring (tile & wood), changed the hardware finish. 

We broke ground early June, and closed September 9, the house was done September 1 but needed final inspection with electricity. 

Go over to Home & Garden, several of us have built / are building and have a lot of different builds so I'm sure there is someone that is similar to what you may be doing. 

[sillygoosegirl]

I wanted to build, but vacant lots are crazy expensive where we wanted to live. Like, a vacant lot significantly smaller and in a worse location than the lot our house sits on would have cost only 30% less than our house and lot.

[2boys2danes]

My first house was semi-custom....I wanted my first house and H and I werent engaged or anything yet so I went ahead and did it. He had his own home before we got married but he sold it and moved into "my" house when I closed on it. Even if you buy in a new neighborhood there are usually things that you can change or add as you go. For instance, we wanted a half bath in an upstairs bonus room instead of a closet so they were able to do that, we wanted french doors that closed in a study/bedroom and they changed the plans to make that happen.

My H was an electrical contractor so he could watch the progression of the building and help catch anything early that looked like it was going off the rails so if you have a friend or family member like that its very helpful. I agree with upgrading the pad for sure (not necessarily the carpeting) where you choose to use carpeting. We also took an allowance for our lighting/fixtures... Again, H was an elec contractor so we ended up with unusual and higher end fixtures than would have come with the house.

One thing I had in that first house that we had the builder add was an intercom system. It wasnt fancy but if someone rang the front door and I wasnt expecting anyone or wanted to avoid the kids selling magazines then I just "answered" from inside the house and said "no thanks". I would also recommend if you have a fence that you do shadow box (looks pretty nice) and you have a double gate put in in case you ever have to get a truck of any sort into the backyard (to deliver a hot tub, put a pool in , plant larger trees, etc)

Building a house can be trying for sure...but in the end, it has your fingerprints all over it in terms of what makes it "yours and unique" which is pretty neat. Good luck!@

[tripleshot]

We built a semi-custom home last summer. I love my house and the experience was great. I think a lot depends on the builder you choose. We used Wayne Homes and they were wonderful. I'll PM you my blog about the building process from start to finish.

[pantsparty]

We are building in a tract neighborhood. I have been surprised by how stress-free the process has been. I mean, it's not ENTIRELY stress-free. But essentially we had already been pre-approved, we found a lot we liked, and we signed the sales contract. We went through the process of picking out the finishes. Our builder has something called a Home Gallery where you go and pick out everything in about half a day: cabling, flooring, paint colors, tile, cabinet pulls, etc. That part was somewhat stressful because their standard model finishes suck, and everything you want is an upgrade, and costs more. But over the course of about a month we made all of our choices and signed that agreement as well.

They are now framing and we go out about every other week to look at the progress. My H felt better last week after seeing that they wrote our custom options on the concrete floor, LOL. He was very concerned about them missing steps when putting up the structure.

Meanwhile, I have friends looking for houses and putting in offers without even seeing the place because the market is so competitive. And they all have things they want to change immediately once they get in. We are getting exactly what we want, and we don't have to compete with anyone for it.

I think it really depends on the builder. There have been a couple of times we had questions on the financing of the house once we added our options; we had to pay a certain percentage out of pocket and the rest is supposed to roll into the value of the house. We went back and asked our sales agent what the houses were appraising at because we didn't want to add so many finishes that the mortgage amount increased above the appraisal amount (or how much more we'd have to come out of pocket at closing). But we were able to get those questions answered and it's been a waiting game since then.

From what I've seen and heard from other people that built, the process seems easier with a larger, established developer. There are less little steps we have to be involved in, or they consolidate them so we we can get certain steps done quicker. I don't think I'd want to do a custom build. That level of stress is way above my threshold, LOL.