House Construction - Best value and working with a bulder/s???

[Ken45101]

Finding the right builder is a critical task. 15 years ago, my ex and I built our "dream house". It was almost funny, we would go to a custom builder and they would assure us that they would build what we wanted. When we explained what we wanted, they inevitably came back with one of their stock plans which was nothing like what we wanted! The old "any color you want as long as it's black."

Eventually we found a good, small builder who had done houses in our old neighborhood. Small operation, full time devoted to our project. I agree with "keep a close watch" on the job. We went out and looked at progress every evening. Heck, their was a labor shortage at the time (1999) and my son and I actually spent a day helping the builder out (he paid us for our time too.) It was neat to have actually worked on building the bedroom wall

But yes, I suspect you can find existing houses on the market for less than it will cost to build. My ex and I ended up in a divorce less than two years after building the house and it was sold at a significant discount to what it cost to build. I don't think I would build a new house again.

 

[Tomtint]

Many of the "big builders" are incapable of building a true custom home. They are accustomed to building 1-2-3 styles of home with different color shutters and they know to the nickel how much material and labor will run. Building a custom home will require a true craftsman and someone on site all day, everyday. Many of the people capable of true craftsmanship are small builders who take pride in their skill and do not fit in with the corporate big box builders. IMO, that's the guy you should look for.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I designed my own retirement home, had an architect do the final drawing to scale, (cost me $100 x 2 because we did a flip flop on the original drawing). I got with a local builder with the basic plans, (floor plan, roof details) and we went over the specifications like size and type of HVAC, wall stud width (we used 2x4 as here we don't need the extra 2" for wall insulation), roof type, windows, doors, electrical panels, insulation, etc. This was all just put down handwritten on a sheet of paper. He came back in about a week with his figures of $189K for a 2308 sq foot of heated area, oversized 25x25 garage, wood frame house on concrete slab with brick veneer. It is single story with a large elevated covered deck on the rear(12'x44' with lower concrete slab under the deck, front porch 10x22, all double pane energy efficient windows and doors. He had established parameters for $$$ for cabinets, doors, windows, flooring & lighting fixtures so that it would be in the $189K price. We did a lot of the buying ourselves for which we got a deduction from the allowance. We went way over on the custom built cabinets and new kitchen appliances from the allowance because we got the top of the line appliances, custom built cabinets instead of Lowes built etc, but got our lighting (ceiling fans in every room, all LED lights in kitchen, dining, family room in addition to the ceiling fan lights) under the allowance as well as doors and windows for less.
We also found hardwood flooring for the bedrooms and marble for the rest of the house for much less than the $6.50 PSFallowance so we saved a bunch there. It did take a lot of looking and shopping to save a bundle also on bathroom fixtures. For example, the fixtures for the master bath shower were over $1500 at Lowes, but we found the exact same thing on-line for a bit over $500. It was worth the effort on our part to shop and look for cheaper prices. Some of the stuff we bought outright and hauled to the site ourselves, other stuff like the hardwood and marble we had delivered (marble came from Houston -about 10,000 pounds worth even after paying for shipping it was less than half of what we could find it locally for). Total cost was about $81 per square foot when finished not including the cost of sewer and water installation which added another $6500 to the total so $195,500 total cost + $25,500 for my 30x52 shop. The house and shop are valued now at $300K, substantially more than I paid to build them 3 1/2 years ago.

One thing no one has mentioned about the cost of custom built homes is that the $XXX per square foot includes the land cost and permit fees which can add substantially to the cost of housing in a city. My 11.29 acres was $2250 per acre so really cheap for land. A lake lot in Crosby Texas that we priced about 10 years ago was $60K for a 100x120 lot and I am sure it is double that now.

 

[aczlan]

Many of the "big builders" are incapable of building a true custom home. They are accustomed to building 1-2-3 styles of home with different color shutters and they know to the nickel how much material and labor will run. Building a custom home will require a true craftsman and someone on site all day, everyday. Many of the people capable of true craftsmanship are small builders who take pride in their skill and do not fit in with the corporate big box builders. IMO, that's the guy you should look for.

I agree. To the OP, I would read through pclausen's thread ( http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/projects/269704-building-stick-frame-house-woods.html ) and see some of the issues with a builder who is working on many jobs and doesn't have a dedicated onsite supervisor...

Aaron Z

 

[newbury]

I have to agree with others that buying used is where it's at.

Before we bought our Mississippi retirement home I had planned on having our own built, expecting to pay about $150/sq ft for the house.

This is what I found


3.5 acre lot outlined in green, 70 acre lot outlined in red.



House w/ pool on left, "workshops" (5,500 sq ft on the right).

We got the stuff on the 3.5 acre lot for $170K. (the 70 acre was another $75K) That's a 3,000 sq foot living area with a walkout basement to the pool, elevation similar to the OP's. So if you want to say cost per sq foot I don't know how to exactly break it down. I've many threads on here about the workshops (all wired, concrete floor for trucks, 1 bedroom apartment in the big one) but most people seem to agree the shops are worth at least $10 to $15/sq foot.

So was it $170K ($56/sq ft) for the house? Or $82K ($27/sq ft)? Regardless it was a lot less than $120/sq ft. ($360K). And since we had budgeted for at least $300K that left $$ over for 70 acres of land, a truck, a tractor, a bunch of implements, remodeling etc.

From the first house I bought I learned that buying a house was like buying a tractor, you need to buy attachments.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I have to agree with others that buying used is where it's at.

Before we bought our Mississippi retirement home I had planned on having our own built, expecting to pay about $150/sq ft for the house.

This is what I found
View attachment 357757

3.5 acre lot outlined in green, 70 acre lot outlined in red.

View attachment 357758

House w/ pool on left, "workshops" (5,500 sq ft on the right).

We got the stuff on the 3.5 acre lot for $170K. (the 70 acre was another $75K) That's a 3,000 sq foot living area with a walkout basement to the pool, elevation similar to the OP's. So if you want to say cost per sq foot I don't know how to exactly break it down. I've many threads on here about the workshops (all wired, concrete floor for trucks, 1 bedroom apartment in the big one) but most people seem to agree the shops are worth at least $10 to $15/sq foot.

So was it $170K ($56/sq ft) for the house? Or $82K ($27/sq ft)? Regardless it was a lot less than $120/sq ft. ($360K). And since we had budgeted for at least $300K that left $$ over for 70 acres of land, a truck, a tractor, a bunch of implements, remodeling etc.

From the first house I bought I learned that buying a house was like buying a tractor, you need to buy attachments.

Land certainly isn't that cheap here. We paid $2250 for our 40 acre tract 6 years ago and it was much less than asking price but had been on the market for years and inheritance land so kids were a bit desperate to sell. My daughter in law just bought 10 acres adjoining our property on the north for $5K per acre which was $2500 per acre less than asking. Any time you can get wooded property for $1000 per acre, that is a bargain and so was the house. Location might have something to do with it or in a depressed economy area which is OK if you are retired and not planning to do any work, you can take the bargains on housing and land.
My brother found some heavy pine wooded land, bought it on credit , sold the timber for more than the cost of the land and paid off his note in 2 weeks. Bargains do come along, I personally don't find many to buy but do sell some from time to time

 

[Gary Fowler]

The one good and best part of building new is that you can get exactly what you want (at least as much exactly as you can afford) and it is all new and ready to be scratched and dirtied up for the first time rather than buying and then having to paint and fix up or remodel to try and get some semblance of what you really wanted. Only a small percentage of folks can find everything that they want in a pre-built home, most of the time it is one or two items they really like and the rest they try to live with.

 

[Bigkrank]

Just watch some episodes of "House Hunters". It is amazing all the picking apart about the houses the perspective buyers do. I always want to yell at the TV "build your own house dummy"

 

[dmccarty]

Find a builder you can trust and LIKE. You will be depending on him for many months if not years and you will live with what he builds. Find a builder you like and trust is very hard and time consuming. We spent years looking for a builder before we found one we liked and trusted. We became friends before he ever did any work on our land and we were friends at the end of the build.

I designed our house and the builder put it together. The "blue prints" were what I printed off and handed to him. We have 10 foot tall ceilings, LOTS of windows that are 4x5, 8x6, 8x5 and 12x6. We spent a small fortune on doors and windows. The house has brick on all sides, 36x96 solid wood door, nice wood trim, finished colored concrete slab, nice cabinets, granite counter tops in the kitchen and bathrooms, and a 50 year roof shingles. Not including land or driveway cost, the house was $120-130 when built during the building boom. The price you are mentioning seems very high given the economy.

The house design should be simple as possible. Hallways and stairs are expensive wasted space that needs to be minimized if one wants to save money. I have seen so many house designs that spend big dollars on space you walk through. Our house has maybe 30 SF of hallway space in two areas. We wanted a two story house with an open area over the living room but it was far to expensive to build. The problem with two story houses is that you either build too big or have to accept smaller rooms as a compromise. Stairs eat up space on two levels and without very careful design require hall or landing space which adds up to the cost. My area has a shortage of new homes that are single story even though they are in big demand. The reason for two stories is the cost of land is so high that a decent size ranch cannot be built on the little city lots. We built a single story house so we could live in the house until we croaked and we did not want to be walking up stairs. The house is designed so that our limited hallways are wheel chair friendly and all doors are at least 36 inches. The bathrooms are accessible as well.

My parents want a ranch and can't find one up here. We went looking at modular and the prices were around $90-120 not including site work, well, septic and foundation. I would guess the final modular price would be close to stick built but it would be easier and faster to move into. Likely easier as well. We tried modular years ago but the price was too high back then for what we wanted and we decided we would go ahead and build the dream house. If we did not build the dream house when we did, we likely never would...

Later,
Dan

 

[Stimw]

While it's fun to dream about the perfect home unless you have plenty of money you have to make compromises.
2 years ago I wanted to replace a 35 year old mobile home on my property that I had been living in for 13 years.
I wanted to pay for it out of my savings and keep all costs down because I was 63 years old and didn't want to go into debt.
I went with a Manufactured Home (what they used to call mobile home but now the quality is much better).
I found a brand that had very good looking construction, (I know what I am looking at) I found a floor plan close to what I wanted and tweaked it the way I wanted it.
I made 2 copies of the plan, cut out the rooms on one and re-arranged them on the other plan. Then made a copy of that and gave it to the dealer. He faxed it to the engineers at the factory and they filled in the details and said they could build it for the same price as the original plan.
It took the factory 4 days to get it into the build sequence and complete it!
I have 3 bedroom, two bath, Vaulted ceilings, crown moldings, walk in closets, wall to wall carpet plus many upgraded features that were standard. I paid extra for upgraded insulation package.
A 28' X 56' came in at $40. sq ft. And I consider it custom.
I wish I could have placed it over a basement but our water table is about 2' so that can't work here.
Just something for you to consider.