Anyone here ever built a house?

[Dtrigg]

My wife and I have been looking for an existing home to purchase, but over the past few months we just haven't found anything that we wanted. So...we are now considering building a home. Our origional idea was to rebuild our California house (we have all of the plans,etc.) But that house is WAY too contemporary for the Raleigh market. I've read some books on the subject and it seem that it could be a great project, or a real pain in the butt.

Also, has anyone used the services of a construction manager versus a general contractor?

Any thoughts or input would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Doug

 

[hlweyl]

One of my friends acted as his own general contractor to build his house and at the same time I had my house built by a local builder. There are advantages and disadvantages for both ways.

A few are that if you are using a good builder, things get done FASTER. They get preferential treatment from all their subs. The subcontractors depend on them for the bulk of their work. The subs will prioritize their work according to what benefits them. So for example: so who will they choose when they have the choice of drywalling a house for the largest builder in the county or Joe Blow who is building his own house? I know that oversimplifies that issue, but it will happen. You will get put on the back burner.

My friend would wait MONTHS for the subcontractors to come in. He paid his own cousin to do the framing and he assisted. The advantage there is that he could easily customize design features of the house on the fly whereas when you use a gc, it takes a small act of God to change things once they are set. He also got a little more for his money than I did.

Our house was built in under 4 months and his took well over a year.

good luck

 

[Dtrigg]

David, thanks for the input. I don't want to act as a general contractor. In fact, I think you have to have a license to do that here. As I understand, a "builder" will add somewhere between 15% to 25% for the construction costs.

On the otherhand, a "construction manager" will complete the project for a nominal fee or a percentage of the total cost. The difference between the two is that the owner assumes the risk when using a construction manager versus the contractor. Normally the construction manager will do the following:

- consults on plan and lot selection
- does estimate and bid preparation, bid selection and review
- owner selects subcontractors from their list
- owner secures financing and handles all payments
- manager gets all permits, handles building inspections and code complience
- manager schedules all work
- manager handles quality control and punch lists
- manager resolves disputes and problems
- owner fees manager with material/product and color selections

I have already located a number of builders as well as a number of construction managers, all of which operate on a local and national basis. Also understand that my real estate attorney has to do the paperwork if I work with a manager.

Our objective is to build a quality home that we could sell in two years for a maximum profit.

Thanks again.