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Per Bubba’s Request

Bubba asked if i could give more advice on houses. Figured I’d post them here too. Here goes:

Most important and worth restating is establish your budget and stick to it. If you go over $100 on fixtures, then cut $100 from lighting. It will quickly add up. Unless of course you’re made of money (which I’m not) then you can buy whatever you want.

Your builder should give you a ‘good faith’ estimate (assuming you’re doing a construction to perm loan at the bank. Even if you’re paying cash, I’d suggest the loan route just to get the good faith estimate). Ask him what basis these numbers have (i.e., our builder told us that 1.5% of the cost was budgeted for lighting, 2.5% was budgeted for fixtures) when broken down into line items (like fixtures, carpet, lighting, shingles, brick, ad infinitum).

We used an existing plan and basically drew the plan up using Home Architect 6.0. We then modified it to suit our needs (added a larger pantry, moved some walls around). Before doing that, ask the builder which walls are load bearing.

If you build in a subdivision, pay attention. Other builders tend to sponge off each other. For example, the guys building houses near mine were using my dumpster (which my builder charges to me, of course) and were even using my electricity (which your builder bills to you, of course).

You can save major $ doing some sweat equity. Go by a couple nights a week and clean up after the work crew. Pick up stuff in the yard, pile trash in the dumpster, etc. Also, when the floor is done, go by several nights a week to sweep and shop-vac it. This stuff adds up if you’re builder is charging you $15-$20 per labor hour and it’s stuff you can do on your own.

Most of the time, you can get stuff cheaper at (of all places) Lowe’s. For example, we went to the builder’s supplier and priced ceiling fans and lights. Then we got the price. The price for the same items was considerably less at Lowe’s. However, if your builder is doing a flat fee contract, this won’t really affect you. Of course, when you buy at Lowe’s, you may have to transport it to the site yourself.

Buy vinyl windows. They cost about $50 more per window. But they don’t sweat and are better insulated. You’ll recover the cost of these in utility bills.

Speaking of windows, by all standard sized windows. The custom windows are expensive. More importantly, with standard windows, you can buy standard blinds. These are far less expensive when you go to Lowe’s and buy them. If they’re custom blinds, they double in price.

Unless you really like cathedral ceilings, go with standard 9ft ceilings. Cathedrals are more expensive. And they are almost impossible to insulate. They will cost more off the bat and over time. In addition, the lighting and fixtures cost more when you have to buy them for cathedral ceilings.

I also suggest you pick a single color of paint for your entire house. And then, later, paint each room on your own. The reason is that the painters can do one color in a decent sized house in one day. If they have to stop, clean their equipment and load new paint, it takes several days. And these guys are charging you $25 – $50 per hour.

Toward the end, there will be a punch list. When you and your builder walk through the house, you write on this list problems and things that need done. If you can do these things yourself, it’ll save you the labor charges.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m cheap. Which is why my total house cost was about $8,000 less than the initial budget.

If you have pets (I got a couple of large dogs) that like to be outdoors, pay the extra to have sod placed in your lot. It’s cheaper than replacing carpet that gets muddy from pets that walk around in the dirt until your grass grows.

Have your electrician place two cable wires in each wall outlet. That way, you can get satellite, internet, cable, etc. in each room.

Speaking of electricians, when you walk through with him, write down where you want your switches and which lights they control. We didn’t do this. Now, it seems that some of our switches don’t do what we thought they did. But we could have told the guy wrong.

If you buy your own stuff, deliver it only when the builder is ready to install it or he can lock the house. A couple houses in our subdivision had their lights, air conditioner, and windows stolen. Your builder should have insurance, but he’ll only report something major to keep his premiums down.

Buy a flat top stove, they really help resale value and are easy to clean.

Landscaping is expensive. If you have a green thumb and want to do it on your own (or more accurately, your wife wants you to do it), it’ll save you some money.

Also, one neat thing we did was each trip to the lot we snapped a picture. Now we have a nice little picture book of the progression of the house.

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