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re: Wife and I seriously considering building a house
Posted on 2/5/13 at 4:41 pm to TIGRLEE
Posted on 2/5/13 at 4:41 pm to TIGRLEE
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.
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.
Posted on 2/5/13 at 5:07 pm to PlanoPrivateer
look up web site doug rye.com. He has a dvd on how to build an energy effic. house. I used many of his ideas. I built a house twice the size I was living in and cut the power bill in half.
Posted on 2/5/13 at 5:38 pm to PlanoPrivateer
quote:
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 always recommend paying a contractor instead of building yourself. The subcontractors do work for the GC to get more jobs. They know that you, as an independent agent will never hire them again.
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