Questions to Ask Yourself Before Building a House
Back in August 2016, my husband and I decided to take advantage of a strong local real estate market and sell our house. We had a substantial amount of equity as well as a splittable lot. Our plan was to use the equity from selling our home to help us fund the building of a new house on our remaining land.
By early September, our house was in contract and we were working with the local planning commission to officially split the parcels of land. In early November, we closed on our house and moved out. By Thanksgiving, we had ourselves a poured wall foundation. It was a whirlwind! It all worked out, but there were several things I wish I would have considered before we started digging (instead of learning as we went!).
Will the house plan I picked out really work for me/my family?
Our house plans were drawn up by a family friend (which we are still SO grateful for!) based on a combination of several different plans we liked. Fortunately, he was able to look at some of the dimensions and tell us they needed re-worked. For example, the two-car garage in the plan would literally fit two cars, but it was neither deep nor wide enough to accommodate a car and my husband’s truck. We also had the realtor who sold our house look over the plans, and she told us in no uncertain terms that we needed to figure out how to widen the kitchen (both for functionality and resale) because what looked like an open kitchen in the plans was in fact a small galley kitchen.
Check with your builder to see if they have models of your floor plan available. If so, don’t just walk through and admire it. Really spend some time getting a feel for how your family would live in it. Where would you keep your coats and shoes? Is there enough closet space? Will your dining room table fit? Where could you work from home? Is the laundry hookup in a convenient place? Will you crowd each other in the kitchen?
If there is no model home available, show your plans to people who know the ropes and ask for their opinions. We were so thankful that both our draftsman’s and our realtor’s expertise. You could also check with contractors you are going to use on the job as well as friends and family who have recently built.
What Size and Type of Lot Do I Need?
Making sure your house will fit well on your property is just one step in determining how much and what type of land you will need. It is a very important step, and we made some adjustments to our plan so that our house would fit on our property (we had to change the left side of our house plan so that the garage didn’t stick out so far in the front–as it was originally, the garage would have dropped off the front of a hill into a creek).
First things first–make sure you have an accurate survey and are 100% sure of the boundaries of your property. Also, get familiar with zoning requirements/restrictions where you are building. How far from property lines must your building be? Are you allowed to have outbuildings? Fences? Animals? And what types of easements are on the property?
You also want to be aware of the type of zoning on the property surrounding your own. That will determine what could be built around you in the future. Our property is currently bordered along the back edge by farm fields, but it is zoned commercial/light industrial, and there is a good chance it will be developed along those lines in the next couple years. Not what we were hoping for!
Our property is slightly hilly/rolling land with lots of trees and a small swail/creek running through the front yard. Even though we have nearly 2 acres, things got a little tight when we found out we had to put in a complicated mound septic system AND save a chunk of land for a secondary mound site if the first one were to fail. We also had to engineer a driveway that crosses the creek and excavate in a way that allowed for a walkout basement on one end of the house and natural drainage down toward the creek.
We are really pleased with the way our house sits now that it’s finished, but it sure was a process trying to make it all work!
Is My Time Frame Realistic?
What is your time frame? Will you build before or after you sell the house you’re living in now? How will the weather affect the build? When will your contractors be available? When will materials be available? What is the inspection schedule in your area?
Steven and I knew that time was a priority for our family. We needed our foundation set before the weather turned cold or rainy/muddy. We would need to get under roof before the winter turned too snowy/icy. We needed to pass inspections and move in by the end of April. That gave us 6 months to complete the new build after closing on the house we sold. That’s pretty rushed! We did it, but it wasn’t easy.
Start by talking to your general contractor (or if you are acting as the general contractor, talk to your subcontractors) about their schedule/availability and get an estimated time frame from them. Does it match your time frame? Also, be prepared for delays. Things go wrong. Contractors get backed up. Inspections don’t pass. Weather is uncooperative. It happens. It’s frustrating, but it helps to expect it and move on. We told our main contractor (framing/roofing/siding/windows) that it was imperative for us to be done by March 31. We didn’t pass our final inspection and get to move in until April 22. That did cause some logistical headaches (moving an extra time, staying with family for 2 weeks), but we did finish within 3 weeks of our goal, which is pretty good given the number of variables involved in a project of that scope.
On the flip side, if time is not an issue and you can take your time, that’s great! You will probably have a more relaxed and enjoyable experience, and you’ll probably be able to get better deals on contractors and materials by being patient. One thing to keep in mind though–if you have a construction loan, you will be racking up interest as you go.
What is My Budget?
Talking about the actual expenses of building a house is probably the least fun thing involved, but you have to be realistic and prepared. Decide what you can pay for out of savings and what you will need to get a loan to cover. Talk to the bank ahead of time and determine what you can actually afford to pay back.
Before you start building, pin down a budget with your general contractor. Also ask what happens if the contractor’s costs change during the project. Who is responsible? How do you cover the gap? If you are the general contractor, get estimates from multiple subcontractors for each phase of the build and make sure you know if they are including the cost of materials in that price.
From our personal experience, I would advise planning your build for significantly less than your maximum budget, unless your general contractor signs a contract with you that locks in the cost to build. Some big builders will offer this, but you have to be careful about where they make up the cost differences when one part of the project goes over budget.
We had some serious sticker shock when our main contractor came back with our actual invoices when the work was done. It was WAY over budget, and he gave us no warning that his costs were outrunning him and he was blowing past the estimates he had given us. We had to get very frugal and very creative to make up the difference.
What are My Top Priorities?
We learned the hard way that there are a lot of compromises in building a house, especially if you want to stay on (or near) budget. We had a lot of big ideas about what we wanted our new house to be, but we had to get realistic about what was worth the money.
Steven and I had to get on the same page about what was really important to us, and most of the time, it wasn’t anything fancy. For example, we really wanted good, thick insulation. That cost extra. We wanted both a front and a back porch that were deeper than normal for actual outdoor living. That cost extra. We picked a decent but not expensive carpet but chose to upgrade the carpet pad underneath. No one sees it, but it sure does feel good under our feet! (And it cushions all those falls as our baby girl learns to walk!)
What was less important were things like closet lights. We picked up very plain, standard globes at Lowe’s for $7 each. We did not finish the bonus room above the garage. Instead of doing hardwood floors throughout the main living space, we found 300 square feet of distressed cherry that someone had leftover from their own new build and was selling super cheap and just did our entryway/dining room/kitchen area.
We also chose to wait on a couple big things until we could save up the money to pay for them out-of-pocket. When we moved in, we did not have an air conditioner, nor did we have concrete poured in the garage or on the back porch. It was a little bit of a hassle, and it actually changed what type of mortgage we could have (we had to use a non-conforming loan because our house was technically not finished). However, it felt really good to keep our mortgage balance and monthly payment at an amount we were comfortable with, and it was rewarding to save up some money with a goal of finishing those projects.
Sit down and make a list of your priorities. The key here is figuring out what really matters to your family and the way you will live in and use your house. Don’t get so caught up with having a picture-perfect house that you lose sight of your financial goals!
How Much of the Work Could/Should I Do Myself?
I was pregnant with baby girl during the entire house build, so a lot of the dirty work was more than I was allowed to do at the time. I could, however, buckle down on the materials list and put my bargain-shopping skills to the test. As I mentioned before, I found decent lights for our closets for $7 each. I found some amazing hardwood flooring at a really amazing price. I used home improvement stores like Lowe’s and Home Depot but also took advantage of deals on Amazon, Wayfair, Walmart, and Craigslist.
It’s also worthwhile to check with people you know who are involved in home improvement work. Our neighbor was able to get us a porch railing system at wholesale cost. Our bathroom vanities and kitchen cabinets and countertop were custom-made by a relative and a friend, respectively, for an extremely reasonable price.
Steven was the general contractor for our project and worked part of every single day on the house alongside whatever subcontractors were there. He dug the driveway, nailed up boards, pulled wire, hung light fixtures, took measurements, installed flooring, picked up materials, dug a trench for the electric line, cleaned up the construction site, custom made the door and window trim, finish graded/seeded our yard, and many other jobs.
Make a list of your skills ahead of time. Are you a great bargain shopper? A skilled woodworker? Experienced at pouring concrete? Figure out what you could do to add value to the process. Make sure you talk to your general contractor ahead of time to make sure that your time frame matches theirs–you probably don’t want to slow down the whole process because subcontractors are waiting on you. Also weigh how good and quick you are at home building skills against what you do for a living and how much you get paid to do it. It might make more sense to pay a skilled crew to come in and drywall the whole house in two days and be done instead of you trying to do it on your own over the course of two weeks.
Keep in mind that there may be parts of the process that your local building code department requires a licensed professional to handle. Steven is very skilled at electrical work, but where we built, it was required that a licensed electrician do the work on our new house.
What Support System Do I Have in Place?
No joke–building a house is hard, stressful work. I don’t know how we would have gotten through it without the help.
People were praying for us. People texted us to check in on us and our progress. People brought us food (yay!). It was encouraging just to know we were cared for.
We also had friends and family help in the finishing stages–priming the walls before painting, sweeping up drywall dust, tiling our shower, painting trim, and installing the hardwood flooring. Some jobs require some knowledge and expertise, but some just require willing hands to do the work.
This not only saved us time and money, it also reminded us that we were not alone in this big project and that we had a community of support around us. It still makes me smile to look at the header in the doorway to the dining room and remember the afternoon that my cousin and my little man (only three at the time) helped me fill in nail holes with wood putty and then paint over them. When we moved into our new house, it already felt like home because we had been making memories there with people we care about!
Am I Ready?
If you have worked through these questions and have a plan in place, it might be time to get started! Here are a few things you should have in place before you start digging:
- contractors you trust
- budget
- bank loan
- property survey
- house plan that works for your family
- septic design/plans (if necessary in your area)
- priority list
- place to live
Additional Resources
Check out these Pinterest Boards for information that was helpful to us throughout the building process:
