Well, this is already a busy first week as I look for temporary housing for our family and try to plan the building of our new house. We've already done a lot of research for subcontractors using Angie's List and personal recommendations, so thankfully we don't still have all of that to do as well. We've also been working on our plan and the steps we need to take in all of this ahead of time, so I feel like we're about as prepared as we can be. It doesn't make it any less scary that we will be responsible for this and we can't just hand it off to a builder, but I think it will be worth it in the end because this is allowing us to build our dream home.
Tomorrow I'm taking off a half day of work so we can meet with our mortgage broker about our construction loan and mortgage for our new house. We need to find out the specifics of what they will need to approve our construction loan. Based on what I've read, they will need our general contractor to get approved by them and they will need a portfolio of sorts with our price estimation for the house and land. So, as soon as we meet with the architect and get our blueprints, I will begin preparing quotes from the subcontractors and get quotes for all of the materials we will need as well as sitting down with whoever we decide to choose as our general contractor and go over scheduling with him. I will then present all of my info and price estimation to the bank and hopefully get it approved. Once it's approved, we can put our plan in place and purchase the land.
We meet with our architect on Wednesday and will show him the floorplans we like as well as all our other ideas about how to layout the house. We'll also talk to him about the different elevation options for our house and decide which ones we like the best. We already have a lot of specific ideas about what we want both in the interior and the exterior, so I hope it's a fairly smooth process. I'm most excited about meeting with with the architect because once we get our blueprints, all of this will finally seem like a reality. We will still have a long way to go and a lot to do, but this is the first essential step. Once we have the blueprints then we can get all of the quotes.
Monday, July 2, 2012
Sunday, July 1, 2012
First Steps
On Friday we officially accepted an offer on our house, so I began the first steps of the house building process. First, I started calling around to find temporary housing for our family while we're building our new house. Then I called an architect that we had found that would draw up the blueprints for our house a lot cheaper than most. We are scheduled to meet with him on Wednesday to go over the floorplans for our house that we have decided on.
Also in doing the research leading up to this we found that banks would not give us a construction loan without a licensed general contractor as part of the project. So, we had to change our plans slightly and had to hire a general contractor to help me. My plan is to work with him on putting together a schedule for the subcontractors and also a schedule for material deliveries. So, I called a couple of general contractors that I located through a reputable service locally and set up times to meet with them. Once we have our blueprints, I will meet with them and get quotes from them on how much they will charge for doing some project management for me.
On Tuesday we are meeting with a mortgage broker to go over the specifics of the construction loan and to find out exactly what they'll need in order to give us this loan. Based on what I've read, they need blueprints as well as all of our quotes from subcontractors and any material prices we can give them, but there could be other things that we don't know about.
Today my wife and I took some time to drive around and look at the exteriors of some houses and took pictures so we have ideas for when we talk to the architect on Wednesday. Here are some of the exteriors we are looking at and we might like for our new house.
Also in doing the research leading up to this we found that banks would not give us a construction loan without a licensed general contractor as part of the project. So, we had to change our plans slightly and had to hire a general contractor to help me. My plan is to work with him on putting together a schedule for the subcontractors and also a schedule for material deliveries. So, I called a couple of general contractors that I located through a reputable service locally and set up times to meet with them. Once we have our blueprints, I will meet with them and get quotes from them on how much they will charge for doing some project management for me.
On Tuesday we are meeting with a mortgage broker to go over the specifics of the construction loan and to find out exactly what they'll need in order to give us this loan. Based on what I've read, they need blueprints as well as all of our quotes from subcontractors and any material prices we can give them, but there could be other things that we don't know about.
Today my wife and I took some time to drive around and look at the exteriors of some houses and took pictures so we have ideas for when we talk to the architect on Wednesday. Here are some of the exteriors we are looking at and we might like for our new house.
In the beginning....
So, for a little background, the initial stages of this home building process began about a year ago. We had decided that if we wanted to expand our family and add a third child, we needed to find a larger home. So, we began the initial planning stages of when we should sell our house and whether we wanted to buy a house or build one. After debating it for a while, we decided that we'd like to build a house so we could customize it to fit our needs and tastes.
Once we had decided that, we started the process of finding a builder to make all of this happen for us. The first builder we went to was the one that had built our current house. After meeting with them several times and going over different options for floorplans and everything that goes into building a new house, we just weren't completely satisfied with what we would get for the price. So, we started looking into other builders in the area and talked with a few more.
Eventually we decided to go with a different builder that was significantly cheaper than the original one we had wanted to use and was basically the same quality. We were very happy with our choice and decided to go ahead and try to sell our house this past spring.
The beginning of the bucking of the normal process really began at this point when after a lot of research and thought, we decided to sell our house without an agent. This was practically unfathomable for me at first as I'm a very conventional thinker in most circumstances. My wife is much more of an unconventional thinker in a lot of these areas especially when she thinks it's something we could do on our own and save money. I have to give her credit for all of this because if it would have been left to me, we would have used a real estate agent and not saved nearly as much money on the sale and I would have never even considered the next step.
I think all of this help set the stage for independence and going against the normal and the safe way that most people pursue. So, probably about 5 months ago, she approached me with the idea of building our own house and not using a builder. Her boss at work had done it and had done a lot of the work on his own and had saved a lot of money doing so. Well, I instantly shot her down because I know next to nothing about construction and I'm not really even much of a handyman. She asked me to at least look into it and think about it and also think about how much money we could save.
The seed had been planted so I began to do all the research I could into how to even go about starting the process and what all was involved. The thought that I had in my head was that we'd physically be doing a lot of this and as I said before, I don't even have close to the expertise for that. After a while, I found that we wouldn't really need to do that much if we didn't want to. The more you do on your own, the more money you save, but with a builder the largest overhead is what they simply charge you for overseeing the project. Well, I'm a very organized and analytical person and very detail oriented, so I'm fairly good at managing projects at work and in other areas. So, I started thinking, that if I can find the people to do a lot of the work for me, I can oversee the project and not have to do that much work, but we'd still save money.
The more I looked into it, I found that I would need to be responsible for finding and hiring the subcontractors, finding and purchasing materials and taking care of several other aspects like permits and scheduling inspections. All of this, I can handle because with the internet, it's easy to find reviews and other things on subcontractors so it isn't a shot in the dark as to whether they're trust worthy or not. Also, if you search around, it's very easy to find deals on materials whether it's sales or last year's model that has been discontinued and so on.
Well, I don't want to drag out my first post for too long, but basically in the end, my wife and I both decided to try and tackle building our own home. I will be taking on the role of general contractor while working my normal 40 work week. I know I will be busy, but it will also be a lot of fun and a great journey together as a family. We just sold our house on Friday, so even though I've already done a lot of research and legwork, the real work on this begins.
I plan on blogging about the various steps and adventures throughout this journey of building our house from start to finish. And if I can do it, so can a lot of other people.
Once we had decided that, we started the process of finding a builder to make all of this happen for us. The first builder we went to was the one that had built our current house. After meeting with them several times and going over different options for floorplans and everything that goes into building a new house, we just weren't completely satisfied with what we would get for the price. So, we started looking into other builders in the area and talked with a few more.
Eventually we decided to go with a different builder that was significantly cheaper than the original one we had wanted to use and was basically the same quality. We were very happy with our choice and decided to go ahead and try to sell our house this past spring.
The beginning of the bucking of the normal process really began at this point when after a lot of research and thought, we decided to sell our house without an agent. This was practically unfathomable for me at first as I'm a very conventional thinker in most circumstances. My wife is much more of an unconventional thinker in a lot of these areas especially when she thinks it's something we could do on our own and save money. I have to give her credit for all of this because if it would have been left to me, we would have used a real estate agent and not saved nearly as much money on the sale and I would have never even considered the next step.
I think all of this help set the stage for independence and going against the normal and the safe way that most people pursue. So, probably about 5 months ago, she approached me with the idea of building our own house and not using a builder. Her boss at work had done it and had done a lot of the work on his own and had saved a lot of money doing so. Well, I instantly shot her down because I know next to nothing about construction and I'm not really even much of a handyman. She asked me to at least look into it and think about it and also think about how much money we could save.
The seed had been planted so I began to do all the research I could into how to even go about starting the process and what all was involved. The thought that I had in my head was that we'd physically be doing a lot of this and as I said before, I don't even have close to the expertise for that. After a while, I found that we wouldn't really need to do that much if we didn't want to. The more you do on your own, the more money you save, but with a builder the largest overhead is what they simply charge you for overseeing the project. Well, I'm a very organized and analytical person and very detail oriented, so I'm fairly good at managing projects at work and in other areas. So, I started thinking, that if I can find the people to do a lot of the work for me, I can oversee the project and not have to do that much work, but we'd still save money.
The more I looked into it, I found that I would need to be responsible for finding and hiring the subcontractors, finding and purchasing materials and taking care of several other aspects like permits and scheduling inspections. All of this, I can handle because with the internet, it's easy to find reviews and other things on subcontractors so it isn't a shot in the dark as to whether they're trust worthy or not. Also, if you search around, it's very easy to find deals on materials whether it's sales or last year's model that has been discontinued and so on.
Well, I don't want to drag out my first post for too long, but basically in the end, my wife and I both decided to try and tackle building our own home. I will be taking on the role of general contractor while working my normal 40 work week. I know I will be busy, but it will also be a lot of fun and a great journey together as a family. We just sold our house on Friday, so even though I've already done a lot of research and legwork, the real work on this begins.
I plan on blogging about the various steps and adventures throughout this journey of building our house from start to finish. And if I can do it, so can a lot of other people.
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