re: Wife and I seriously considering building a house

I am just finishing building my second house in a few years. Use spray foam insulation and spary the roof rafters, dramitacally cuts down on power usage and the house maintains its temperture well. The first price a sub gives you is never the best price. If you have any negotiating skills, you can get a better price. Stained concrete floors are a great DIY project and you can literally floor your house for pennies on the dollar and get a nice look. Make sure you file all the permits correctly and that each phase of construction gets signed off on before you begin the next. The best advice though is to plan start to finish, have a construction schedule that puts the subs in the order they need to be and ask questions if something looks off to you. And remember, as long as you have someones money you still have leverage, once you pay them, it is very difficult to get them to come back in and fix something.