Questions for home builders/custom ..Please advice...

[yasir]

Looking into building a house but have few questions ?
1)- What's the average cost/sq ft for a custom build ? Good builders around here where we live are costing about $150+/sq ft,is that too much?
2)-I know a local good commercial builder that wants to build our house for $120/sq ft which i think is pretty reasonable. Now the question is,why so much difference ?
3)-What questions do i need to ask them especially the 2nd one to make sure he is building a nice house ?
4)- Our requirements are, a nice brick out side with nice floor tiles/granite tops and good kitchen cabinets.
Please advice.
Thanks

[berettafan]

Not a builder but you'll never get apples to apples.

In this housing market your dollars will probably go MUCH farther buying a forced sale.

My tip would be to pick a design then get quotes for the major options directly from subs. Things like real hardwood floors, granite counters, custom cabinets, etc. Get it as far as you can so that you end up comparing pricing for a shell with particular specs (ie 2x6 walls, engineered floor joists, 40yr shingles, xxxxx windows, xxx size HVAC).

A good builder will be on site fixing things that go wrong. A poor builder (National guys) will send a bunch of mexicans out and say 'good luck'.

[stomachmonkey]

Reputation is key. That's where the research should start. It goes beyond the build, what's their rep for dealing with post build/warranty issues. A lot of them forget you exist after the sale.

The diff in cost per sq ft will be in grade and amount of materials like granite, tile etc...

If you simply give him your requirements, "a nice brick out side with nice floor tiles/granite tops and good kitchen cabinets." without them being specifically spelled out then don't be surprised if his interpretation of nice and good are different than yours.

Research builders, get one with a good rep, look at the plans for models that they've built, ask to go see one either currently under construction or already sold. Many times they will pay a customer to show their house. Our builder paid us to show our house 4-5 times after we moved in.

[70racing]

There are a lot of variables, square ft. cost is just a broad base, it can include the living area (air cond. area) or it can include the garage, porch, etc. Does the cost include building permit, impact fees, septic tank or water/sewer hookup.

You should first develop a plan, either from an existing set or modify a floor plan to what you want different. If the plans do not have specifications built-in, on the plans, then someone needs to specify these details, i.e. size of footers, steel, concrete strength, lumber dimensions, - it is a long and detailed process to arrive at a comprehensive cost and bid. One contractor may provide allowances, $6./sf labor & material for tile, $30/sy carpet, - eitherspecify model numbers of applilances or use allowance. I think you get the picture.
A good and competent contractor will sit with you and go thru all the details. Get references, check licenses - it can be a great experience or a nightmare - someone once said building a home is one of the most stressful situations on a marriage that can happen.
PM me if you need more specifics, retired now but 30 plus yrs. as contractor.

[mikeatfhc]

My advice as a consultant to the industry and a former contractor would be to get as detailed a set of plans and specifications you can prior to starting the bidding process. The less detailed you are with respect to the materials, quality of construction, etc. the more likely the bidders will provide lowest cost alternatives to lessen the price of their bids. No bidder will assume you want gold-plated toilet seats unless you specifically tell them so.

After you have as detailed a set of plans as you can reasonably create, go out to bid. Use only licensed, insured and fully bonded pre-qualified contractors. Let the bidders know in advance that you will be accepting 3 to 4 bids from equally qualified, quality contractors. After the bids are in, then meet with the lowest 2 bidders to review the missing details. What did you assume here for carpet, tile, windows, etc? Take notes.

Draw up a contract that details everything, if you have the manufacturer of the exact item you want installed in your home, name it in the contract. This is often included as an attachment to the contract we sometimes call the "scope of work."

Further in the contract get an agreement on the length of time for the construction, agreed hourly rates for changed work, insurance coverage, required lien releases from the general contractor and all material suppliers, subcontractors on the project. Who will pull and pay for permits (I would recommend you have the contractor do this as a part of the contract). Specify how monthly/bi-weekly progress payments will be made and hold retention (typically 10%) until the entire project passes final inspection.

Just a start, but at least doing this much you can to be sure you are getting an accurate bid and protecting yourself from major pitfalls as the work progresses.

If you have any other questions, just ask.

[look 171]

One more thing, as a custom remodeling contractor, I advice my clients and written in my contracts that I do not except final payment after final inspection, but the both party must agree to the punch list. final inspection will pass if a faucet is not on straight and the granite top is not align property and the paint in the hall way is a different shade of white. Contractor should take care of all that before he get his share of money. That's the way I have always done it. Good luck.

[Groesbeck Hurricane]

Look for the contractor who is actually building the homes the other contractors are selling.

We used subcontractors as the builders back in Texas in the late '90s. 2800 sqft, marble countertops, custom cabinets (locally built), custom design home from my plan (but a rather simple custom plan), 5.5" slab with 24" beams under it, antique wood floors, ceramic and porcelain tile, 3 bed/3 bath, 800 sqft garage, metal home with steel i-beams, and more than 6" of insulation all around for about $33.00 sqft. We did the painting, hanging of doors, installation of all flooring, I did all the location clean-up (no clean-up crew).

If you can do parts of the work you will save tonnes of money! Painting saved us $7,000.00. We put the floors in for about $2.75/sqft. Doing the floors saved us more than $15,000.00. That is alot of money!

I do not know what current prices are. At the time the local custom builders were quoting around $120.00/sqft on my plans. And IF I had gone the that route, the same subcontractors who built my home would have built my home for the custom builders.

[Evans, Marv]

All these guys are all offering absolutely excellent advise.
I recently completed my house as an owner/builder in SoCal. I'm retired and really stuck with the project from start to end, did about 95% of selecting the subs, gofering for materials, dealing with suppliers, tracking costs, getting permits & struggling with the County, scheduling, and everything else. I've never done it before, but I had the time and worked with contracts and managed people when I was working, and I've done a few things in construction when I was younger (45+ years ago - & not that that's too important).
The going rate around my area was around $150/s.f. several years ago for a fairly normal house. I ended up doing mine for around $135/s.f. for a totally custom house. It doesn't have super expensive stuff inside & out, but it is nice enough that people in the area talk about it and stop by to see & take pictures of it once in a while - not that that's particularly important to me but nice that they like it that much.
One thing I did was get a local carpenter/builder/etc. to act as a consultant for me when I had questions, and I paid him at an hourly rate for that. He was also the framer and did a lot of the finish stuff for me. Another thing I did at the beginning was get an attorney that did contract & civil law. I did end up having him call one guy and write a letter to another to straighten things up and get things going. He was well worth it. Plus the subs I had learned about that through the grape vine and kept it in mind. The more you are involved, the better it will be for you. It's a lot of work and effort, but by no means impossible.

[look 171]

Originally Posted by Evans, Marv

All these guys are all offering absolutely excellent advise.
I recently completed my house as an owner/builder in SoCal. I'm retired and really stuck with the project from start to end, did about 95% of selecting the subs, gofering for materials, dealing with suppliers, tracking costs, getting permits & struggling with the County, scheduling, and everything else. I've never done it before, but I had the time and worked with contracts and managed people when I was working, and I've done a few things in construction when I was younger (45+ years ago - & not that that's too important).
The going rate around my area was around $150/s.f. several years ago for a fairly normal house. I ended up doing mine for around $135/s.f. for a totally custom house. It doesn't have super expensive stuff inside & out, but it is nice enough that people in the area talk about it and stop by to see & take pictures of it once in a while - not that that's particularly important to me but nice that they like it that much.
One thing I did was get a local carpenter/builder/etc. to act as a consultant for me when I had questions, and I paid him at an hourly rate for that. He was also the framer and did a lot of the finish stuff for me. Another thing I did at the beginning was get an attorney that did contract & civil law. I did end up having him call one guy and write a letter to another to straighten things up and get things going. He was well worth it. Plus the subs I had learned about that through the grape vine and kept it in mind. The more you are involved, the better it will be for you. It's a lot of work and effort, but by no means impossible.

Marv, that's really cheap for custom around here. You are on the hill side also aren't you? I saw the photo of your office with a cup of coffee on that chair. It has to be up there 160 bucks or more for the higher end finish details.

[look 171]

Yasir,

One more thing, if you are going the route of acting construction manager or contractor, check out your subs and ask for not only references, but visit their current and previous jobs to see their work or talk to the home owner. And ask about their crew.

I take clients to see and visit current projects all the time. It is had done wonders for all three parties. It makes me look good, current clients loves to show off their proj, and new clients get to interact with current clients which usually love us (mostly my crew). I do not have to say a word and they sell it for me.

Good subs or tradesmen should be able to give you sound advice on both pro and con about specific construction methods and cost.

Jeff

[silverwhaletail]

Yasir;

Are you in N. Kentucky by chance? Cincinnati is my hometown...

Two years ago, my wife and I built a 5046 sq foot home in SoCal. We also have a 22' x 40' attached garage. (we have no basement)

We read three or four books about subcontracting your own home, acquired financing and then built. We owned the lot for about 10 years prior to building. (CC&R's specify nothing smaller than 3000 sq feet and about 100 other things that are prohibited)

For kicks, we got bids from general contractors and EVERY SINGLE CONTRACTOR quoted the same thing. $150 per square foot. and they said don't expect high end finishes... F'ing Thieves...

So we did it ourselves. It was time consuming as heck, but very very simple. The toughest part was dealing with "The City." Plan check took a year. We paid $54,000 for "permits". (to be granted the privilege of building a stupid house on the stupid dirt that you already own.)

We did it for about $90 a sq foot, not including permit fees or of course the price of the lot.

We have a high end kitchen (48" thermador double oven stove, 48" thermador island hood, Viking "built in cabinet faced" fridge, thermador dishwasher, thermador trash compactor,) and I think 2 complete slabs of granite in the kitchen alone.

The master bath also has the same matching granite as the kitchen does, and even the laundry room has the same granite.

the entire ground floor 2,400 sq feet is travertine. the stairway and upstairs is carpet, except for the kids suite which is engineered hardwood. ( i laid the wood myself during construction).

the house has huge crown molding in every room. (it took the finish carpenters 2 months to do the baseboards and crown. that's why i had time to lay the hardwood floors myself)

We have a whole house fan, two AC units, and the entire house was hardwired with CAT6. (total waste of money. we use a wireless router. be critical of the "smart house geeks" ). We also have a central vacuum.


We bought 24, 8' tall, solid core interior doors. All bedrooms have walk in closets, there are no sliders in the house.

The front entry double doors are 8' x 42" mahogany. The rear doors are 8' x 36" french doors, also mahogany. (if i had it to do over, i would have bought iron front entry doors. hanging, staining and finishing the doors cost a fortune. another stupid mistake. people say that they are beautiful though...)

We have 118 feet of wrought iron railing up the steps and across an unsupported bridge that spans the living room. another stupid feature that cost alot of money that could have been avoided. the steel in the bridge alone cost over 8k. the installers said that it was ridiculous the thickness/strength that the engineer called for in the plans. The railings were another 15k. again, a stupid unnecessary expense that could have been avoided if the engineer had "been looking out" for me. If you draw your own plans, make sure that you tell them to point out any design features that are going to cost unusual amounts of money.

The living room/dining room has 21' ceilings. The room is 40' x 27'. Because of earthquake issues, this required shear walls on both interior walls as well as 8" thick exterior walls on the house. While this was nice for added insulation, had I known then what I know now, maybe I would have changed the design a bit to save in lumber costs. the flip side is that the house stays very warm in the winter and very cool in the summer so maybe it was worth the extra cost.

We put Hunter ceiling fans in every room except the living/dining room. They are awesome and very cheap to operate.

If you build a good sized house, you will need an intercom system. When you yell at your kids, it will echo and you won't know which direction you should be yelling. PREWIRE every place that you even think you might want to add an intercom later. We didnt wire the guest suite and wish now that we had. It would be nice to be able to inform guests via intercom that breakfast will be ready in 5 minutes etc... We prewired the garage and that is very convenient for the wife when she wants to make me come in...

Do all of your underground work (utilities) a few weeks BEFORE you pour the slab/dig the basement. We waited till after, and "The City" was a royal pain in the a$$ as far as the depth/placement of the underground vault and inspections of the depths of the gas line, electric panels etc.

Again, "The City" was the worst. They were liars and thieves. I will never build in California again.

[Evans, Marv]

Look 171
You got me to go back & take a look at my figures, and the cost came out to $151/s.f. The $138 figure was one the came to mind from a little before the final costs were paid. The house is 3.3K s.f. witihout the garage. Could be the lower construction cost was because of the simplicity of the building. My wife & I like the southwestern/pueblo (?) style. Here are a couple of overhead & patio pics.

[LakeCleElum]

Also - Most contractors figure garage space at 1/2 the going rate. So &75/ft instead of $150/ft. When I was budgeting for my recent build, that really threw the figures off.

I got the cost down to $102/ft with high end cabinets, counters, floors this way:

Did myself:

Install siding
Install cabinets
Finish electrical - (all outlets, switches, lights, etc)
Finish Plumbing - (sinks, toilets, showers, facuets, dishwasher, etc)
All interior doors and trim - Finished the trim myself
Deck
Parking pad in front of garage - 35 X 22
1.5 acre lawn
Built pad/surround for wood stove

Found cheap subs for cash to:

Drywall
Paint - Interior and exterior
install hardwood floor

[chapo]

Silver whale shows why a competent builder may help, I.E. order of items to complete, dealing with the city, etc. My Workmans Comp rate and insurance rate ( which both protect the homeowner) are of the scale. But since we are all f in thieves....

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Cover your ass.

Get GOOD contract documents (not just some "plans" you bought off of some dude on the Internet for 200 bucks). Do not skimp on things like document preparation, contracts, background research, etc. I strongly advocate getting a design professional on board - and keeping them on board to handle construction administration.

Best of luck. Cover your ass.

[A930Rocket]

I built my last house (5K Heated SF) for about $130 PSF, including sticks, bricks, lot (one acre on the 5th hole). I guess it all depends on the market you build in as costs can be higher or lower for labor and matrials. Here in Charleston, it's higher than Charlotte, NC and Charotte was low lower than Atlanta, GA.

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by silverwhaletail

Two years ago, my wife and I built a 5046 sq foot home in SoCal. We also have a 22' x 40' attached garage. (we have no basement)

We read three or four books about subcontracting your own home, acquired financing and then built. We owned the lot for about 10 years prior to building. (CC&R's specify nothing smaller than 3000 sq feet and about 100 other things that are prohibited)

For kicks, we got bids from general contractors and EVERY SINGLE CONTRACTOR quoted the same thing. $150 per square foot. and they said don't expect high end finishes... F'ing Thieves...

So we did it ourselves. It was time consuming as heck, but very very simple. The toughest part was dealing with "The City." Plan check took a year. We paid $54,000 for "permits". (to be granted the privilege of building a stupid house on the stupid dirt that you already own.)

We did it for about $90 a sq foot, not including permit fees or of course the price of the lot.


Again, "The City" was the worst. They were liars and thieves. I will never build in California again.

I don't see this as possible, especially given how the house was described. Even if it's true, don't anyone else here think they can pull this off. You won't. It costs 60-70 sq ft to build tract houses when they are built by the 100's at a time.

The highest paid worker on this house couldn't have made over 15/hr. If it took 2 months to install crown and base, that's why.

Anyway, I'm happy that whaletail (or whaletale) got this done on his own because he saved some contractor somewhere from experiencing his worst nightmare.

[chapo]

Read my mind Milt. lol.

[Neilk]

Originally Posted by chapo

Silver whale shows why a competent builder may help, I.E. order of items to complete, dealing with the city, etc. My Workmans Comp rate and insurance rate ( which both protect the homeowner) are of the scale. But since we are all f in thieves....

Is there a scumbag lawyer in the house?

[look 171]

Originally Posted by milt

I don't see this as possible, especially given how the house was described. Even if it's true, don't anyone else here think they can pull this off. You won't. It costs 60-70 sq ft to build tract houses when they are built by the 100's at a time.

The highest paid worker on this house couldn't have made over 15/hr. If it took 2 months to install crown and base, that's why.

Anyway, I'm happy that whaletail (or whaletale) got this done on his own because he saved some contractor somewhere from experiencing his worst nightmare.

I was thinking the same but did not want to say anything. 2 months to do the crown in a 5000sq' home? How big can they be, even at 12" stain grade custom milled crown should not have thken that long. Maybe he hired the framers to hang crown.