re: Wife and I seriously considering building a house

A lot of those are great tips and some I used. The best thing I saw was where you said you know people that have construction knowledge / experience.

My wife and I built our first house. We looked through dozens or more of house plan magazines (do they still have them?). We took a plan from a magazine that we liked the most and fit our budget. A relative of an inlaw was an architect. He drew up formal plans based on what we showed him and the modifications we wanted to make, several sets of plans. Sorry I don’t remember how many. A friend of mine had an uncle that owned a pile diving business. I still remember we had 99 pilings and he gave us a dollar off per piling. Father in law knew a roofer, I had worked for an electrical contractor, a fishing buddy was a sheetrock contractor, and college buddy owned a HVAC company.

Sweat equity – my wife, mother in law, father in law and I did all of the painting, wall paper, installed most of the electrical fixtures. I was even shoveling concrete when we poured the slab.

The hardest part however was not the physical work. It was getting the construction financing. My wife and I were young and dumb. Even though we owned the lot; had paid off the street, sewer, and water liens; and had 20% of the construction cost as a down payment we had a difficult time getting a loan.

Even with all of that the biggest piece was having a friend that was a licensed general construction contractor. Without his advice and guidance we probably wouldn’t have been able to pull it off. I will be forever grateful. So if I had to give only one piece of advice – have or hire someone that can guide you through the process. Good luck and keep us posted.