Should I Build My Own House
Building your own home can be an exhilarating experience or perhaps a disaster. You can do it, but you should move slowly and with much caution. I am a retired home builder and trust me, there could be many pitfalls awaiting you. I have seen a number of people fall into them. Probably the saddest but most amusing example was a man who bought a video tape on how to build your own home and after he finished he was proud of what he had accomplished. I thought to myself, if I had built a house like that, they would have run me out of town on a donkey after suing me for “triple damages”.
People think that they can hire a sub-contractor for each phase of the work and he’ll know what to do. On the surface, this is true, but keep in mind that the good ones are well established with the home builders you are by-passing in order to save yourself an outrageous amount of money. In many cases the ones who are available for you to choose from would be considered marginal, therefore you will not have access to superior subs. They can do the work, however you need to apply the principal, “workers do what is inspected, not what is expected”, and therefore you had better know enough to perform an adequate job of inspecting.
You may feel that you can physically do a lot of the work yourself with a little help from a simple laborer. OJT (on the job training) will not always save you money and can end up costing you money. If you worked your way through college in a construction trade, you probably are capable of doing an adequate job; however you need to factor in the many hours you will spend and your chance of getting hurt on the job. If you have a job that requires tedious use of your hands, you could be jeopardizing you livelihood.
You can go to the internet and find many individuals who are selling CD’s and books on how to build you own house and making claims that you can save 25% to 40% and claiming that hundreds of thousands do it every year. I promise you that with over 20 years experience building houses, a reputable builder who desires to build a beautiful, high quality house doesn’t make such an outrageous amount of money. The builder has hard costs; or what is known as bricks and sticks (lot and construction materials), as well as soft costs; interim financing, insurance, property taxes, office expenses, salaries, real estate commission, closing costs, etc. Just how much of this do you think you can save over an experienced home-builder? Yes, you can save on office overhead, real estate commission, and maybe a few other items. But you also have to factor in discounts on volume purchasing of building materials, efficient use of time and materials, and many years of experience that make for a better product. What you save primarily will be what you dearly spend in energy.
Building a house is a very emotional endeavor and you should be cautious as you move forward developing a list of pros and cons and considering each one in depth. I once read an article on the causes of divorce, and building a new house was forth on the list. Make sure this is a project that both you and your wife are fully committed to. I have purposely tried to throw cold water on your dreams in an attempt to develop reality. You will hear all the positives from the guy wanting to sell you that $75.00 book, or wanting a fee for guiding you along (with no risk, I might add), or maybe one who has done it and loves to brag about how much money he saved.
If building your own home is a must for you, for some positive and important steps to achieving your goal, see my article on this site, “Building a House – 12 Important Steps”.
Category: New Construction, Uncategorized
