An Abbreviated Overview of the Custom Home Building Process
It occurred to me that many would-be custom home buyers are steered away from the home-building process without good reason, simply by subjecting themselves to an unfounded fear, or maybe heard a horror story from a colleague or neighbor, and thinking that all home-build experiences are going to be the same. I decided to write this blog post to address the process (on a high level) in the hope to alleviate certain fears/questions of the process, which in fact can turn out to be one of the most rewarding experiences of your lifetime. The first step is to have a clear understanding of the process, and then affiliate with top, reputable talent and skilled professionals in your area, to insure a successful outcome.
To the uninitiated the process of building a custom home can be a daunting and mysterious process. Most people venturing into the acquisition of a new home are embarking on the largest personal financial commitment that they have made to date. All of this added together can give people reasonable cause to want to understand what they are getting into before they commit themselves. The average home in the East Boise Real Estate area has over 40,000 individual parts and involves the skills of between 85 and 120 suppliers and subcontractors and demands over 3,000 on site worker hours to make the new home a reality.
I remember one of my very early mentors in this business once said, “The home construction business is a very complex choreography of a zillion very simple tasks.” With this in mind the best way to understand the process is to break it down into its individual parts. We like to think of the home construction process as being made up of 10 main elements that are linked together in various ways. These elements are as follows:
It occurred to me that many would-be custom home buyers are steered away from the home-building process without good reason, simply by subjecting themselves to an unfounded fear, or maybe heard a horror story from a colleague or neighbor, and thinking that all home-build experiences are going to be the same. I decided to write this blog post to address the process (on a high level) in the hope to alleviate certain fears/questions of the process, which in fact can turn out to be one of the most rewarding experiences of your lifetime. The first step is to have a clear understanding of the process, and then affiliate with top, reputable talent and skilled professionals in your area, to insure a successful outcome.
To the uninitiated the process of building a custom home can be a daunting and mysterious process. Most people venturing into the acquisition of a new home are embarking on the largest personal financial commitment that they have made to date. All of this added together can give people reasonable cause to want to understand what they are getting into before they commit themselves. The average home in the East Boise Real Estate area has over 40,000 individual parts and involves the skills of between 85 and 120 suppliers and subcontractors and demands over 3,000 on site worker hours to make the new home a reality.
I remember one of my very early mentors in this business once said, “The home construction business is a very complex choreography of a zillion very simple tasks.” With this in mind the best way to understand the process is to break it down into its individual parts. We like to think of the home construction process as being made up of 10 main elements that are linked together in various ways. These elements are as follows:
We are going to briefly touch on each of these 10 elements and explain how they tie together. There is no way to thoroughly explain this process completely in this short post. Hopefully this will give you an overview and generate additional questions you have about the process, then please give us a call.
BUDGET
The budget drives everything and everyone has a budget. Your budget may ultimately be dictated by the bank or by your personal comfort level. Another item, which can affect your budget, is the reasonable fair market value for the home you are contemplating building. Be prepared to discuss your budget constraints frankly with your real estate agent, designer, architect, engineer and builder (aka ‘your Construction Team’) very early on so that the guidelines are clear and established up front for the rest of the process. We hope that when you finish reading this guide that you will understand that this exercise is for naught if your team does not have your budget guideline to go by. You should establish a Budget Ceiling and then utilize your professional team to find out how much lot and home you can fit in to those limits.
Some home buyers try to be coy on this and not reveal their budget. Their only concern is to know how much per square foot a builder charges for the homes that he builds. Never base your financial decision on a $-per-square-foot estimate from a builder. There are way too many components that will affect the $/sq. ft. number, mostly based on your individual selections and quality standards. A reputable custom builder has extreme depth of knowledge of customary costs, however an experienced builder will always want source your build plans to their subcontractors to secure a solid bid. Until this bid number is known, which based on your house specifications/selections, the $/sq. ft. number really is just an estimate, and should be used only as a guideline and not a hard number. We prefer to suggest an alternate scenario to consider:
Picture a custom builder as if he was an automobile manufacturer who builds everything from a bottom line Honda to a top-of-the-line Mercedes Benz or Bentley. A true custom home builder should have the ability to build this range of size and quality. Would you ask a “custom” automobile manufacturer how much they charge per pound for a car? Probably not. The question would be nearly impossible to answer. The actual price for the car (price per pound) depends on what is included in the car and its relative quality. The same is true for a custom-built home.
Your Home Budget is composed of 5 Elements – Land, Land Development, Home Plans, Specifications, and Financing.
LAND
The land is the single largest line item in any construction budget. In our area it usually ends up being somewhere between 1/3 and 1/4 of the overall price of the home. If this line item is handled incorrectly, then the remaining elements of the budget will be seriously impacted. The single biggest mistake that a client will make is to go out and purchase a lot without considering the other elements of the budget. If a person pays too much for the lot in relationship to the rest of the budget or if they pick an apparently cheap lot that has large land development costs, there may not be enough money remaining in the budget to meet the minimum standards for the home that were envisioned. This is not an anomaly and happens far too often when people purchase property without consulting a construction professional to put together the entire budget first. It is our recommendation that a client meet with a design and building professional (or even better a design/builder team, like The Wright Real Estate Group) before embarking on a land search. You need to put together a budget concept to see approximately what the home and required finishing will cost so that it can be determined what is left in the budget to purchase the property. At TWREG, we encourage our clients to have us walk their potential lot(s) so that we can give an evaluation of how the lot and its price might fit into their overall budget and construction plan.
LAND DEVELOPMENT
Land Development is probably the least understood area of the entire process. If you can imagine placing a hook-on top of the home and picking it up from the lot – all the work that remains on the site with the home removed is “land development.” This includes excavation, clearing trees, septic fields, sewer, water, bringing in and connecting utilities, driveway, driveway piers, landscaping (lawn, seeding, bushes and trees), engineering, and permits. On a typical 1/2 to 1-acre homesite in East Boise it generally runs between $75,000 and $150,000 (the higher number is for homesites developed in the City of Boise Foothills) depending on City development requirements. As you can see this could easily be the second largest line item in the overall budget right behind the cost of the lot. We feel that it is unconscionable for a builder to ask an owner to go into the custom home process without having a very good idea as to what the overall land development costs are going to be. To take uncertainty out of this cost, it may be better to look for a finished (developed) lot located within a newly developed subdivision, as these costs have already been incurred by the developer. In this case, you would be paying for a developed lot priced at market value.
HOME PLANS
Home plans can be obtained in many different ways. You can engage an architect or a design/builder to create your plans. Either one can make modifications on some existing plans that they own or start with a blank piece of paper and create a totally unique design. Plans can also be obtained from plan books that are available for purchase online. Plans can also be created by combining many different ideas from many different sources into a unique plan that fits your needs. Many times the custom home plan process is actually a combination of the above. One word of caution. You need to be very careful that you are dealing with an honorable design team so that the very strict house plan copyright laws are not violated in your design process. If a copyright is violated the penalties can be very severe for the designer, the homeowner, and the builder.
Before the first pencil meets paper, the designer and owner must come to a general agreement on the following items:
Research trumps action up-front. Some clients that come to our office that have already selected or purchased their lot and have a completed set of plans end up never building their dream home, because the overall cost for the plan vastly exceeds their budget. We have many customers that have invested between $10,000 and $150,000 and up to two years of their time putting a set of plans together only to find out from us in one quick meeting that they are so far over their budget that the plans have to be thrown away. Unfortunately, this happens all too often, but with the guidance of an experienced design team, you can safeguard against doing this.
We should point out that architects generally make their living by drawing and not building. A design/builder, however, realizes that their income is based on actually building the home so it is in the design/builder (as well as the owners) best interests to make sure that the entire design process ends up with a plan and specifications that falls within the owners budget. Please trust us – you don’t want to put your heart and soul in to spending many thousands of dollars and many months of time designing your dream home only to find out that it will never be built.
SPECIFICATIONS/SELECTIONS (The household ‘jewelry’)
Many of the technical selection items, such as what kind of lumber to use, how the drywall will be glued and screwed, etc., that are necessary to put the home together can be made by your building contractor or designer. Most homeowners are not knowledgeable enough to make these decisions, so it is wise to pick an experienced and trustworthy builder. They can advise you in this area and explain to you the relative quality of the various ways to put a home together and its’ associated costs. The fun part of the selection process is what we call the household “jewelry.” That includes the plumbing fixtures, light fixtures, appliances, cabinets, solid surfaces, flooring, fireplace, focal features, finish carpentry, landscape, hardscape and so forth. Once again, if the budget has been carefully monitored up to the point of making the selections, then there should be enough money left in the budget to put the finishing touches on the home that were envisioned (a pool, outdoor kitchen/BBQ area, outdoor fire-pit or fireplace, etc).
There are two stages in specifications – the Budget Stage (Stage 1) and the Final Stage (Stage 2). From experience we believe the correct way to handle the specification process is as follows:
Stage 1:
The designer/builder can block out the various finishing areas and you can address those one by one. A reasonable quantity, quality, and price needs to be allotted to each of the areas to make sure you preserve enough money in the budget so that when you come to the finishing you can put into your home the “jewelry” you had envisioned. You can help this stage by creating a simple file with ideas taken from your previous home, magazines, Pinterest, and online sites. For example, create a Pinterest board, and organize the photos by category (kitchen, plumbing, trim, etc.) In our initial budget process, we would have a 15-minute discussion as to what level of quality of appliances you think you are looking for and then we offer suggestions that fit into that category. Our design-build team has been doing this for a while and can guide a client to a quick “ball-park” selection which will lead to a reliable line item in the budget to take care of appliances, for example. We will then put prices on each of these appliances for you and show you a total that we will suggest be included as a line item (allowance) in the budget to cover appliances.
Stage 2:
Once the entire budget is put together, you can re-visit each of the selection areas in a casual and informed fashion to refine the selection in plenty of time so that the product can be ordered and delivered within the construction schedule.
FINANCING
Financing is the last item in the budget process but should be thought of first. Many times the amount the bank will finance drives the overall budget. In most cases, the finance part of the overall project is a small percentage of the cost and is really not a very big line item in the overall budget. Custom home financing in Boise Idaho is generally handled as follows. With the cooperation of the builder, the owner will either pay cash for the homesite upfront and finance the build of the home or obtain a package loan to acquire the building lot, build the home and provide for permanent financing once the home is complete. This is typically referred to as a “land acquisition/construction/permanent loan.” This is a very specialized area of financing and we strongly recommend that you interview lenders that specialize in this area of financing. We can provide you with a list of reputable local lending institutions that will treat you fairly and will gladly have an initial no-obligation meeting with you to further explain the process.
DESIGN/BUILD TEAM
The next area to discuss is the Construction Team and their duties. This team is composed of the Owner, Designer/Architect, Engineer, Builder, and eventually the Subcontractors and the Suppliers. Optionally, but highly recommended is to also include a Decorator/Interior Designer as a vital member of the Construction Team.
OWNER
The owner is the most important part of the Team and their duties should be intuitively obvious. Through a chain-of-command usually facilitated by the builder, these duties include communicating to the rest of the Construction Team of what they are envisioning in their new home and how much they are willing to spend. Duties also include making selections on a timely basis, funding the project, and cooperating with the rest of the team during the process.
DESIGNER/ARCHITECT
The Designer/Architect has the obligation of putting the dreams of the customer (not those of the designer) on paper in a professional manner so that it can be understood by the other professionals that will be charged with actually building the home – all within the agreed upon budget and in a reasonable time frame. A reputable Designer/Architect should be willing to provide an estimate of work (EOW) for the client. A design/builder can modify an existing set of plans for less than a completely new set plans, providing the existing plan can easily be modified to fit on the selected homesite.
BUILDER
The builder should have the total responsibility for communication through out the project, establishing the chain of command, for the selection of the subcontractors and suppliers, who will work for the builder to meet the client’s goal. The builder should also work with the client as early as possible and establishing the budget that will guide the entire process. The builder should also work with the owner in the selection process to make sure the items chosen are within budget and on site on when the tradesmen need them to keep the flow of the project moving.
SUBCONTRACTORS AND SUPPLIERS
Subcontractors and suppliers should also be a part of the Builder’s Construction Team and not someone that happens to be “low bid” on your home. Many times these trades are looked at as subordinate to the overall process and this attitude can lead to lack of cooperation, an unstable schedule, and poor quality. At TWREG, our design-build team has selected some of the finest, skilled tradesman in the Boise Idaho area and use them almost exclusively for each of our home build projects. For instance, our design-build team has chosen the best framing contractor available (known for framing precision) and we have negotiated a fair price for each framing job to be constructed according to our schedule in a workmanship like manner that will meet our high standard of finishing. We know we can have framing done less expensively, but we also know that we cannot get the same quality if we “low bid” each job, hop from subcontractor to subcontractor, and try to deny the framing contractor a reasonable profit for the high-quality work we expect of him. We also do not want call-backs later to address shoddy workmanship. By making the subcontractors and suppliers a part of the Construction Team, our design-build team is able to get the best prices for top quality work and keep the jobs moving on schedule.
DECORATOR/INTERIOR DESIGNER
Most of our clients engage these types of professionals, we firmly believe having a professional decorator on-board makes a world-of-difference in the polished, finished look of the home, and are worth the expense. A decorator or interior designer can be helpful in making selections and in helping define the “look” you want the home to have. As with an architect, you have to make absolutely certain that they understand your budget parameters and the importance of making selections on time. We would encourage you to spend as much time researching your interior designer as you would your builder.
SCHEDULING
Every build job has a schedule. Even if a customer says they are not in a rush, we eventually find that they do in fact have a schedule when they evaluate the cost of money and how it effects a job that drags on forever. How long a home will take to build depends on the difficulty of the land development, the complexity of the structure of the home, its size, and the level of finishing that will go into the final home. As a rule of thumb, on a reasonable lot with a reasonable design you should figure a minimum of 10 months (once permits are secured) to finish a custom home that is at or under 5,000 finished square feet on 2 levels. For every thousand square feet of finished square feet above 5,000 finished square feet, you should add a few weeks to the construction schedule.
WARRANTY
Many clients are not aware of what is in the warranty they are getting until the end of the project. We think that it is irresponsible for any builder not to discuss the warranty at the initial stages of negotiations and to include the warranty in the contract documents for your review. A warranty, however, is only a piece of paper and is only as good as the builder who is behind it. Many of the warranty heartaches that we hear about in the industry are the direct function of the owner choosing an inexperienced contractor who has a poor track record of building a true quality home and an even worse track record of honoring their commitments to fix the legitimate complaints of their customers.
A reputable custom builder understands the environment of living and working in the community and honoring their warranty policy in the industry. Always ask about the warranty. Typically all normal items are covered for 1 year as is normally done by most builders. Some builder warrant the mechanical systems, (plumbing, electrical, heating & air conditioning) for 2 years. Other builders will warrant the foundation for up to 5 years, for example. In addition to that some outstanding boutique builders will go back 4, 5, 6 and even 10 years later to fix certain items at little or no cost to the owner. This is the honorable thing to do and just makes good business sense. In choosing your contractor, you should focus carefully on the builder’s reputation of honoring their commitments to the owners once they have been paid and the owners have occupied the home and even after the Warranty expires.
CHANGE ORDERS
Change Orders are unfortunately looked on by many as the “dirty words” of the construction business. This should not be the case. A true custom builder should be willing to customize the home as the building progresses. Our design-build team is willing to make any changes or modifications at the initial stages of the design or any time during the construction process as long as they are reasonably compensated for our efforts. There is never a charge to execute the change order, just for the additional time, difference if materials and labor for the specific change. If the builder can move a closet from one side of a bedroom to the other with a pencil (on the plans) before it is built, then there is little or no charge for this service. If, however, we have to move the closet from one side of the bedroom to another with a sledge hammer after it as been framed, drywalled and painted, then there will be a charge commensurate with the amount effort the workman have to expend and how the change delays the project.
As a result of the step-by-step process our builders use to guide our clients, tearing things out is a rare occurrence. Always spend the most time in plan review up-front and it will pay off in spades in a smooth construction-build process.
The change order process and the associated costs should be clearly defined in the contract with unit prices agreed upon up front so that there will not be any disagreements between the parties when a change order occurs.
BUILDER CONTRACT
The contract documents serve as the road map for the construction process once the budget is agreed upon and the design is complete. A competent custom home builder who has been in business for a period of time should be able to provide you with a fair and honed contract that will accurately direct the course of events throughout the construction process. Our builder prides himself in having a contract that has been refined over the years that is clear, concise, and fair to all parties.
SUMMARY
Hopefully this guide has made you more comfortable with the overall custom home process. Your best key to a successful custom home process is to do your homework and check references extensively so you choose a good, competent, experienced custom home builder to guarantee your dreams will become a reality in a cost effective, timely and enjoyable fashion. When you set up your first no-obligation meeting with us, we can explain anything in this process that you don’t understand. Our goal is to make the process as seamless as possible, with a rewarding experience so you can enjoy your beautiful custom design-built home for years to come.
Please feel free to give us a call at any time, we will be happy to sit down with you and further the discussion at no obligation, just an investment of your time! Happy Home Building in your Future!
BUDGET
The budget drives everything and everyone has a budget. Your budget may ultimately be dictated by the bank or by your personal comfort level. Another item, which can affect your budget, is the reasonable fair market value for the home you are contemplating building. Be prepared to discuss your budget constraints frankly with your real estate agent, designer, architect, engineer and builder (aka ‘your Construction Team’) very early on so that the guidelines are clear and established up front for the rest of the process. We hope that when you finish reading this guide that you will understand that this exercise is for naught if your team does not have your budget guideline to go by. You should establish a Budget Ceiling and then utilize your professional team to find out how much lot and home you can fit in to those limits.
Some home buyers try to be coy on this and not reveal their budget. Their only concern is to know how much per square foot a builder charges for the homes that he builds. Never base your financial decision on a $-per-square-foot estimate from a builder. There are way too many components that will affect the $/sq. ft. number, mostly based on your individual selections and quality standards. A reputable custom builder has extreme depth of knowledge of customary costs, however an experienced builder will always want source your build plans to their subcontractors to secure a solid bid. Until this bid number is known, which based on your house specifications/selections, the $/sq. ft. number really is just an estimate, and should be used only as a guideline and not a hard number. We prefer to suggest an alternate scenario to consider:
Picture a custom builder as if he was an automobile manufacturer who builds everything from a bottom line Honda to a top-of-the-line Mercedes Benz or Bentley. A true custom home builder should have the ability to build this range of size and quality. Would you ask a “custom” automobile manufacturer how much they charge per pound for a car? Probably not. The question would be nearly impossible to answer. The actual price for the car (price per pound) depends on what is included in the car and its relative quality. The same is true for a custom-built home.
Your Home Budget is composed of 5 Elements – Land, Land Development, Home Plans, Specifications, and Financing.
LAND
The land is the single largest line item in any construction budget. In our area it usually ends up being somewhere between 1/3 and 1/4 of the overall price of the home. If this line item is handled incorrectly, then the remaining elements of the budget will be seriously impacted. The single biggest mistake that a client will make is to go out and purchase a lot without considering the other elements of the budget. If a person pays too much for the lot in relationship to the rest of the budget or if they pick an apparently cheap lot that has large land development costs, there may not be enough money remaining in the budget to meet the minimum standards for the home that were envisioned. This is not an anomaly and happens far too often when people purchase property without consulting a construction professional to put together the entire budget first. It is our recommendation that a client meet with a design and building professional (or even better a design/builder team, like The Wright Real Estate Group) before embarking on a land search. You need to put together a budget concept to see approximately what the home and required finishing will cost so that it can be determined what is left in the budget to purchase the property. At TWREG, we encourage our clients to have us walk their potential lot(s) so that we can give an evaluation of how the lot and its price might fit into their overall budget and construction plan.
LAND DEVELOPMENT
Land Development is probably the least understood area of the entire process. If you can imagine placing a hook-on top of the home and picking it up from the lot – all the work that remains on the site with the home removed is “land development.” This includes excavation, clearing trees, septic fields, sewer, water, bringing in and connecting utilities, driveway, driveway piers, landscaping (lawn, seeding, bushes and trees), engineering, and permits. On a typical 1/2 to 1-acre homesite in East Boise it generally runs between $75,000 and $150,000 (the higher number is for homesites developed in the City of Boise Foothills) depending on City development requirements. As you can see this could easily be the second largest line item in the overall budget right behind the cost of the lot. We feel that it is unconscionable for a builder to ask an owner to go into the custom home process without having a very good idea as to what the overall land development costs are going to be. To take uncertainty out of this cost, it may be better to look for a finished (developed) lot located within a newly developed subdivision, as these costs have already been incurred by the developer. In this case, you would be paying for a developed lot priced at market value.
HOME PLANS
Home plans can be obtained in many different ways. You can engage an architect or a design/builder to create your plans. Either one can make modifications on some existing plans that they own or start with a blank piece of paper and create a totally unique design. Plans can also be obtained from plan books that are available for purchase online. Plans can also be created by combining many different ideas from many different sources into a unique plan that fits your needs. Many times the custom home plan process is actually a combination of the above. One word of caution. You need to be very careful that you are dealing with an honorable design team so that the very strict house plan copyright laws are not violated in your design process. If a copyright is violated the penalties can be very severe for the designer, the homeowner, and the builder.
Before the first pencil meets paper, the designer and owner must come to a general agreement on the following items:
- the overall size of the home should be
- the general specifications
- what the overall budget is for the structure and finishing items.
Research trumps action up-front. Some clients that come to our office that have already selected or purchased their lot and have a completed set of plans end up never building their dream home, because the overall cost for the plan vastly exceeds their budget. We have many customers that have invested between $10,000 and $150,000 and up to two years of their time putting a set of plans together only to find out from us in one quick meeting that they are so far over their budget that the plans have to be thrown away. Unfortunately, this happens all too often, but with the guidance of an experienced design team, you can safeguard against doing this.
We should point out that architects generally make their living by drawing and not building. A design/builder, however, realizes that their income is based on actually building the home so it is in the design/builder (as well as the owners) best interests to make sure that the entire design process ends up with a plan and specifications that falls within the owners budget. Please trust us – you don’t want to put your heart and soul in to spending many thousands of dollars and many months of time designing your dream home only to find out that it will never be built.
SPECIFICATIONS/SELECTIONS (The household ‘jewelry’)
Many of the technical selection items, such as what kind of lumber to use, how the drywall will be glued and screwed, etc., that are necessary to put the home together can be made by your building contractor or designer. Most homeowners are not knowledgeable enough to make these decisions, so it is wise to pick an experienced and trustworthy builder. They can advise you in this area and explain to you the relative quality of the various ways to put a home together and its’ associated costs. The fun part of the selection process is what we call the household “jewelry.” That includes the plumbing fixtures, light fixtures, appliances, cabinets, solid surfaces, flooring, fireplace, focal features, finish carpentry, landscape, hardscape and so forth. Once again, if the budget has been carefully monitored up to the point of making the selections, then there should be enough money left in the budget to put the finishing touches on the home that were envisioned (a pool, outdoor kitchen/BBQ area, outdoor fire-pit or fireplace, etc).
There are two stages in specifications – the Budget Stage (Stage 1) and the Final Stage (Stage 2). From experience we believe the correct way to handle the specification process is as follows:
Stage 1:
The designer/builder can block out the various finishing areas and you can address those one by one. A reasonable quantity, quality, and price needs to be allotted to each of the areas to make sure you preserve enough money in the budget so that when you come to the finishing you can put into your home the “jewelry” you had envisioned. You can help this stage by creating a simple file with ideas taken from your previous home, magazines, Pinterest, and online sites. For example, create a Pinterest board, and organize the photos by category (kitchen, plumbing, trim, etc.) In our initial budget process, we would have a 15-minute discussion as to what level of quality of appliances you think you are looking for and then we offer suggestions that fit into that category. Our design-build team has been doing this for a while and can guide a client to a quick “ball-park” selection which will lead to a reliable line item in the budget to take care of appliances, for example. We will then put prices on each of these appliances for you and show you a total that we will suggest be included as a line item (allowance) in the budget to cover appliances.
Stage 2:
Once the entire budget is put together, you can re-visit each of the selection areas in a casual and informed fashion to refine the selection in plenty of time so that the product can be ordered and delivered within the construction schedule.
FINANCING
Financing is the last item in the budget process but should be thought of first. Many times the amount the bank will finance drives the overall budget. In most cases, the finance part of the overall project is a small percentage of the cost and is really not a very big line item in the overall budget. Custom home financing in Boise Idaho is generally handled as follows. With the cooperation of the builder, the owner will either pay cash for the homesite upfront and finance the build of the home or obtain a package loan to acquire the building lot, build the home and provide for permanent financing once the home is complete. This is typically referred to as a “land acquisition/construction/permanent loan.” This is a very specialized area of financing and we strongly recommend that you interview lenders that specialize in this area of financing. We can provide you with a list of reputable local lending institutions that will treat you fairly and will gladly have an initial no-obligation meeting with you to further explain the process.
DESIGN/BUILD TEAM
The next area to discuss is the Construction Team and their duties. This team is composed of the Owner, Designer/Architect, Engineer, Builder, and eventually the Subcontractors and the Suppliers. Optionally, but highly recommended is to also include a Decorator/Interior Designer as a vital member of the Construction Team.
OWNER
The owner is the most important part of the Team and their duties should be intuitively obvious. Through a chain-of-command usually facilitated by the builder, these duties include communicating to the rest of the Construction Team of what they are envisioning in their new home and how much they are willing to spend. Duties also include making selections on a timely basis, funding the project, and cooperating with the rest of the team during the process.
DESIGNER/ARCHITECT
The Designer/Architect has the obligation of putting the dreams of the customer (not those of the designer) on paper in a professional manner so that it can be understood by the other professionals that will be charged with actually building the home – all within the agreed upon budget and in a reasonable time frame. A reputable Designer/Architect should be willing to provide an estimate of work (EOW) for the client. A design/builder can modify an existing set of plans for less than a completely new set plans, providing the existing plan can easily be modified to fit on the selected homesite.
BUILDER
The builder should have the total responsibility for communication through out the project, establishing the chain of command, for the selection of the subcontractors and suppliers, who will work for the builder to meet the client’s goal. The builder should also work with the client as early as possible and establishing the budget that will guide the entire process. The builder should also work with the owner in the selection process to make sure the items chosen are within budget and on site on when the tradesmen need them to keep the flow of the project moving.
SUBCONTRACTORS AND SUPPLIERS
Subcontractors and suppliers should also be a part of the Builder’s Construction Team and not someone that happens to be “low bid” on your home. Many times these trades are looked at as subordinate to the overall process and this attitude can lead to lack of cooperation, an unstable schedule, and poor quality. At TWREG, our design-build team has selected some of the finest, skilled tradesman in the Boise Idaho area and use them almost exclusively for each of our home build projects. For instance, our design-build team has chosen the best framing contractor available (known for framing precision) and we have negotiated a fair price for each framing job to be constructed according to our schedule in a workmanship like manner that will meet our high standard of finishing. We know we can have framing done less expensively, but we also know that we cannot get the same quality if we “low bid” each job, hop from subcontractor to subcontractor, and try to deny the framing contractor a reasonable profit for the high-quality work we expect of him. We also do not want call-backs later to address shoddy workmanship. By making the subcontractors and suppliers a part of the Construction Team, our design-build team is able to get the best prices for top quality work and keep the jobs moving on schedule.
DECORATOR/INTERIOR DESIGNER
Most of our clients engage these types of professionals, we firmly believe having a professional decorator on-board makes a world-of-difference in the polished, finished look of the home, and are worth the expense. A decorator or interior designer can be helpful in making selections and in helping define the “look” you want the home to have. As with an architect, you have to make absolutely certain that they understand your budget parameters and the importance of making selections on time. We would encourage you to spend as much time researching your interior designer as you would your builder.
SCHEDULING
Every build job has a schedule. Even if a customer says they are not in a rush, we eventually find that they do in fact have a schedule when they evaluate the cost of money and how it effects a job that drags on forever. How long a home will take to build depends on the difficulty of the land development, the complexity of the structure of the home, its size, and the level of finishing that will go into the final home. As a rule of thumb, on a reasonable lot with a reasonable design you should figure a minimum of 10 months (once permits are secured) to finish a custom home that is at or under 5,000 finished square feet on 2 levels. For every thousand square feet of finished square feet above 5,000 finished square feet, you should add a few weeks to the construction schedule.
WARRANTY
Many clients are not aware of what is in the warranty they are getting until the end of the project. We think that it is irresponsible for any builder not to discuss the warranty at the initial stages of negotiations and to include the warranty in the contract documents for your review. A warranty, however, is only a piece of paper and is only as good as the builder who is behind it. Many of the warranty heartaches that we hear about in the industry are the direct function of the owner choosing an inexperienced contractor who has a poor track record of building a true quality home and an even worse track record of honoring their commitments to fix the legitimate complaints of their customers.
A reputable custom builder understands the environment of living and working in the community and honoring their warranty policy in the industry. Always ask about the warranty. Typically all normal items are covered for 1 year as is normally done by most builders. Some builder warrant the mechanical systems, (plumbing, electrical, heating & air conditioning) for 2 years. Other builders will warrant the foundation for up to 5 years, for example. In addition to that some outstanding boutique builders will go back 4, 5, 6 and even 10 years later to fix certain items at little or no cost to the owner. This is the honorable thing to do and just makes good business sense. In choosing your contractor, you should focus carefully on the builder’s reputation of honoring their commitments to the owners once they have been paid and the owners have occupied the home and even after the Warranty expires.
CHANGE ORDERS
Change Orders are unfortunately looked on by many as the “dirty words” of the construction business. This should not be the case. A true custom builder should be willing to customize the home as the building progresses. Our design-build team is willing to make any changes or modifications at the initial stages of the design or any time during the construction process as long as they are reasonably compensated for our efforts. There is never a charge to execute the change order, just for the additional time, difference if materials and labor for the specific change. If the builder can move a closet from one side of a bedroom to the other with a pencil (on the plans) before it is built, then there is little or no charge for this service. If, however, we have to move the closet from one side of the bedroom to another with a sledge hammer after it as been framed, drywalled and painted, then there will be a charge commensurate with the amount effort the workman have to expend and how the change delays the project.
As a result of the step-by-step process our builders use to guide our clients, tearing things out is a rare occurrence. Always spend the most time in plan review up-front and it will pay off in spades in a smooth construction-build process.
The change order process and the associated costs should be clearly defined in the contract with unit prices agreed upon up front so that there will not be any disagreements between the parties when a change order occurs.
BUILDER CONTRACT
The contract documents serve as the road map for the construction process once the budget is agreed upon and the design is complete. A competent custom home builder who has been in business for a period of time should be able to provide you with a fair and honed contract that will accurately direct the course of events throughout the construction process. Our builder prides himself in having a contract that has been refined over the years that is clear, concise, and fair to all parties.
SUMMARY
Hopefully this guide has made you more comfortable with the overall custom home process. Your best key to a successful custom home process is to do your homework and check references extensively so you choose a good, competent, experienced custom home builder to guarantee your dreams will become a reality in a cost effective, timely and enjoyable fashion. When you set up your first no-obligation meeting with us, we can explain anything in this process that you don’t understand. Our goal is to make the process as seamless as possible, with a rewarding experience so you can enjoy your beautiful custom design-built home for years to come.
Please feel free to give us a call at any time, we will be happy to sit down with you and further the discussion at no obligation, just an investment of your time! Happy Home Building in your Future!
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