The major appeal of a custom-built house is that you get to call all the shots and make all the decisions—you choose the builder, the lot, the floor plan, the detailing, the materials. In short, you get to put your personal stamp on everything. The mechanics of actually building such a house, however, are not quite that simple.
The first step toward realizing your dream house is deciding how you will get your design on paper. You may have been working it out in your head for years, but you have to get it fleshed out and put together all the documentation that will instruct a builder and his crews on how to build your house. This requires much more than a sketch on the back of an envelope. Do you want to hire an architect to design a house for you? How about choosing a design from the catalog of a home-plan design service, a company that designs and sells home plans? Or take the design/build approach and hire a builder who offers design services to design a house for you?
These different approaches differ by thousands of dollars, because the amount of design input differs in each one. The architect-created design is the most expensive by far, because the design will be the most carefully and elaborately developed. The architect will spend several weeks to several months creating a schematic design. This will then be detailed in very elaborate drawings and written specifications that tell the builder exactly what to do. Every surface, every point where one material meets another, every corner where two planes meet, will be carefully considered. The design will also be tailored to your site; topography, views, and orientation.
Purchasing a predrawn plan from a home-plan design service is the least expensive way to get a design. The smaller services may have a portfolio of about fifty designs; the larger ones have several hundred to several thousand. The largest such firms sell magazines showing their floor plans that you can find in newsstands or in the magazine racks at the checkout counter at your local grocery store. The smaller companies often have websites and advertise in magazines like Fine Homebuilding.
The level of detail provided by home-plan design services varies, but even the most elaborate plans will contain far less detail than an architect’s, so much of the finished product will be left to the builder’s discretion. The plans will very likely have to be modified to meet your local building-code requirements and to fit on your site, so their bargain-basement price may not be a great deal.
You may also discover that the custom builders in your area typically have a portfolio of plans that they build, as well as finished examples. The plans may have originally come from a service, or the builder may have had an architect design them. The obvious advantages here are that the builder will have already modified the plans to meet local requirements, and the builder will already know the construction cost. The builder may not charge you directly for the plans, but he will fold their cost into his overhead; one way or another, you will pay for them.
With design/build, you hire a home builder, who in turn hires an architect to design a house for you, based on your tastes, requirements, and budget. The design will be created just for you and tailored to your site, but it will be less elaborate than one provided by a traditional full-service architect, whom you engage directly. As with a home-plan design service, much here is left to the builder’s discretion. The design will cost less than an architect’s, but more than a home-plan service’s.
Asking yourself some pointed questions about the house itself may help you sort out which way is best for you. For example, do you see your house as one with relatively simple lines and conventional detailing, but with exquisite finishes—Brazilian cherry hardwood floors throughout and granite countertops in the kitchen and all the bathrooms? Does your interest in detail extend to how the surface is articulated—authentic layered wainscoting that is site-built by a finish carpenter, for example? Do you want to create unique character with lots of nooks and crannies? Do you eschew a lot of furnishings and want the built-in look with lots of cabinetry?
If you veer toward the high end of the anxiety scale, hiring an architect to spell out everything to the builder beforehand may be the right move, even if your design tastes are simple. If you are uneasy about the bottom line, the design/build or the home-plan service approach in which the builder monitors costs from the start might be a better idea; at any point in the process, you will know what your design decisions are costing you.
With the traditional full-service architect approach, the architect designs the building and then puts it out for competitive bids; the total cost is known only when the bids are received. It is also possible, however, to hire an architect and a builder at the same time. Every detail will be documented, and the costs will be monitored at each step. (For more on this, see Chapter 3.)
If you want a straightforward floor plan, and you’re more interested in the finish materials, design/build or the home-plan service may be more appropriate. If you want a unique character or plenty of intricately designed built-ins, you need a more developed design and should hire an architect.
Another important difference among these three approaches is that when you hire an architect, he will help you find a builder—the key player to making your project a success. If you buy a plan from a home-plan design service or opt for design/build, you will have to find the builder yourself.
Finding the right architect or the right builder will take time, so give yourself several weeks to several months. If you sign on with an architect, expect to spend at least four months working with him or her to develop the design and complete the construction documents. If you decide to work with a builder, you won’t spend nearly as long developing a design or modifying a predrawn plan, but you will certainly spend two months or so finalizing details and making material selections.
Once the design is completed, building permits are in hand, and you’re ready to break ground, don’t expect to leave town for an extended vacation and return just as your new house is finished. During the six to nine months it will take to build your house, you need to visit the site frequently to keep abreast of developments. You will very likely find that as the house goes up, you want to make changes here and there—for example, adding a bay window or making a window opening larger or smaller. These decisions cannot be done long distance.
If you stay involved throughout the process, you will be more pleased with the results. More important, you will have far less chance of any misunderstandings and acrimony developing among you, your builder, and your architect.
Whichever design route you take, you will go back and forth many times on design features (the breakfast room bump-out in or out) and finishes (Corian counters in or out). You will have to make agonizing choices—bigger walk-in closets and smaller bedroom or vice versa, which shade of beige carpet, which cabinet door style for the kitchen.
canyouaffordacustom-builthouse?
Before you spend time exploring the various ways to get a design for a custom-built house and find a builder, crunch the money numbers to see if you can afford it. All the customizing comes at a price. On average, the construction costs for a custom-built house are about double those of a production-built one. And while a production builder sells both the lot and the house, a custom builder’s price covers only the cost of construction. He builds on your land. If you don’t already own a lot, you will have to purchase one, and this must be factored into your total budget.
why are custom-built housing costs higher?
Some of the higher construction costs for a custom house can be attributed to using a higher grade of finishes and materials and more labor-intensive detailing than a production builder typically uses. But much of the higher cost is intrinsic to the endeavor. Most custom builders take on ten or fewer houses a year. The builders may belong to a purchasing cooperative, but they won’t get the same price breaks on materials that a large national production-home-building firm enjoys by purchasing items by the train load.
A custom builder might build as many as three houses at a time, but not on adjacent lots. The lots and job sites will be scattered, so he won’t get the management and scheduling efficiencies that come with building ten to twenty production houses in a row. Moreover, a production builder buys lots from a land developer who may have moved thousands of cubic yards of dirt to create a flat building pad. In contrast, custom builders often work on more challenging lots. They may have eye-catching views, but construction may be harder and more expensive because of steep slopes, poor soils, or some other condition.
Equally important, a custom builder’s houses may be very similar, but they are rarely identical, so the builder has to add in some margin to cover the unknowns. If you want something really different, this margin will be greater. A production builder builds the same house over and over. By the third or fourth time around, he will have calculated its cost practically to the penny.
cost per square foot
To get a range of cost-per-square-foot figures for custom-home building in your market, call your local home builders’ association or ask several local custom builders. This is not a defining figure, but initially it can be quite helpful in determining the feasibility of a project (for more on this, see Chapter 3). If the figures range from $150 to $200 per square foot, the cost of a 2,400-square-foot house could range from $360,000 to $480,000. The higher figure allows for many built-in features and adventurous details such as stairs that morph into bookcases that in turn become the back of a built-in sofa, or the use of unusual woods such as walnut, red birch, or cherry. You might also get unusual flooring in the entry foyer and granite counters in all the bathrooms and the kitchen. The lower figure would afford a nice house but one with fewer details, fewer built-ins, and granite counters only in the kitchen, for example. If these numbers are too high, you might be able to push the cost down to $130 a square foot (which would bring the total for a house down to $312,000), but you would have a very simple house with modest detailing.
strategies to lower costs
You could reduce your cost by building a smaller house. But if you go below 2,400 square feet, you will be eliminating rooms that most people want, such as a den/study, and you will have smaller walk-in closets for the master suite. Below a certain point, there are so many fixed costs—foundation work, framing, plumbing, electrical work, and so forth—that you won’t save that much by shrinking the living area.
Another strategy to lower costs is eliminating the basement or cutting out some conveniences such as a two-car attached garage, but this could affect your resale prospects if these are expected amenities in your area.
financing a custom-built house
Unless you have the cash in hand, you will have to find a lender. Most lenders offer a two-part construction–permanent mortgage loan with only one closing (so you pay all the fees related to borrowing the money and sign all the legal documents only once). During the construction phase, you will be charged interest only; after the house is finished, the loan will roll over into the permanent mortgage, and you will start paying principal as well as interest.
The size of the down payment, which most lenders require to be paid in cash, depends on the specific loan program and the lender. If you already own the land and have owned it for six months to a year, you may be able to apply the equity (the difference between what you paid and what it’s worth today) to your down payment. It’s unlikely, however, that you would accrue sufficient equity to cover your entire down payment unless you have owned the land for years, by which point it may have appreciated enough that the equity will cover a good portion if not all of your down payment.
If you have to buy the land and borrow the entire amount to purchase it, this will affect how much money you can borrow for building the house. For example, if the lot cost is $75 thousand, and the total cost of the project that you can afford is $440 thousand, your construction budget cannot exceed $365 thousand. In some cases, you can get a loan for as much as $400 thousand with only 5 percent down. But most lenders require a 10 percent down payment for loans above $300 thousand, and some lenders require a 10 percent down payment for all residential construction loans. As the total loan amount increases, so does the down-payment requirement. At the $500 thousand point, it will likely increase to 20 percent or $100 thousand. If you are planning to finance your new house with the equity you’ve accrued on your present one, you will have to convert your equity into cash by taking out a home equity loan (for more on this, see Chapter 4).
There is some good news here, however. At the end of the project, the appraised value of your new house and lot is often more than your total cost, because the bank makes the construction loan based on your construction drawings and specifications. When a bank appraiser sees the finished house on your lot your $400 thousand project might be appraised for $450 thousand, in which case you will have a hefty chunk of equity before you move in.
so,youwanttohireanarchitect?
If you’ve concluded that the only way to get the house you’ve always dreamed of is to hire an architect, how do you find the right one? Though designing a house may seem straightforward—especially when compared to a technically complex building type like a hospital—to do it well requires at least five years of experience in residential work. Architects with this background will have taken a design from a quick sketch to a finished house many times and will be familiar with local construction costs and building-code intricacies. Even more important, they will know qualified home-building contractors in your area.
You might well ask: What does the architect do and why does it cost so much to hire one?
The biggest part of the architect’s traditional full-service package is not the creation of a design concept but its elaboration, called design development, and the preparation of extremely detailed construction documents. These instruct a builder how to build what the architect has designed. They specify the materials to be used and form the basis for competitive bidding to get a firm construction price. After the contract is awarded and construction has begun, the construction documents serve as an outside check on the builder’s performance. The full-service architect also supervises the bidding process, helps the homeowners select a builder, and, on the homeowners’ behalf, monitors construction. If there is a dispute with the builder, the architect acts as the owner’s advocate in resolving it.
In addition, an architect may spend many hours developing a design expressly tailored to both the client and the site. During the initial design phase, the architect may meet frequently with the clients to explore different design options. To help clients visualize the project, the architect may build a scale model or transfer the design to a computer-aided design program (CAD) that provides a three-dimensional rendering of the design from many different vantages.
The design development phase, during which the architect refines and customizes the initial concept and prepares construction documents, is even more labor intensive. Supervising the bidding, helping to select a builder, and monitoring construction also demand time.
To keep design fees down, some architects offer a more limited service. For example, the architect may carry the project through the bidding process but won’t monitor it during construction. If your design tastes are simple and the design is relatively easy to build, this may be a sensible course. But if you want anything unusual, you’re better served by having the architect onboard for the entire project.
The traditional full-service architect will often get cost estimates from builders on his bid list as he or she is designing it, but the actual cost will not be known until the project is competitively bid. If it comes in overbid—that is, the cost is higher than you want to pay or can afford—portions of the project will have to be redesigned.
Rather than design the entire project and then bid it, you can hire a builder at the same time that you hire the architect. While the architect is designing your project, the builder is monitoring its cost (for more on this, see Chapter 3).
Since no two architects work in exactly the same way or charge exactly the same fees, be prepared to shop around and talk with several to find the one who’s right for you. You should get the names of at least three residential architects, either from friends or from your local chapter of the American Institute of Architects.
On your first phone call to each architect, don’t hesitate to ask about fees. The architect won’t bring it up, but you should ask. You’ll quickly learn how differently every architect calculates this. For residential work, many architects charge an hourly rate, but will estimate their fee as a percentage of the total construction cost. The fees can vary anywhere from 5 to 15 percent, depending on the complexity of the design you want and the total cost of the project. For the same job, some firms charge more than others. Well-known, prestigious firms generally charge more. Within a given market, the architects based in the outlying suburbs often charge less than those whose offices are located in the higher-rent, central business district.
Some architects charge an hourly fee but will cap it at a specified percentage of the estimated construction cost. For example, if your construction budget is $300 thousand and the architect charges 15 percent, his fee would not exceed $45 thousand. However the architect computes his fee, it will be in addition to the construction cost. If the design charge is $45,000, the total cost of getting your $300,000 house designed and built will be $345,000. If you have to buy a lot, add at least $50,000 to $75,000 for a total of $395,000 to $445,000.
Be sure that you also ask about liability insurance. Some architects “go bare” and don’t have it because the premiums can be very expensive. But even the most experienced architects can make mistakes, and you are engaging one to design a never-before-built house. You should make sure that your architect has both liability and errors-and-omissions coverage (and you should stipulate in your contract that the insurance policy be maintained for the duration of your project). In addition, ask the architect if all designs are routinely reviewed by a structural engineer, another safety check that protects both the client and the architect (you should also stipulate this in your contract).
In this initial call, tell the architect what your approximate budget is and what sort of house you want to build. If you’re not sure stylistically what you want, that is fine; but you certainly will know if you want something more traditional or more contemporary. Some architects will tell you flat out that your budget is too small or that they don’t do “traditionally styled center-hall colonials.” It is much better to be up front on these matters, so don’t be put off. Secretly thank him or her for being so frank, and call the next person on your list.
If anyone seems promising after your phone conversations, the next step is meeting face to face. While you’re talking, assess the personality mix. You will be working together closely for at least a year, so it’s important that you get along. The architect who did a great job for your best friend or your neighbors might not be the one for you. Consider the following:
♦ Does the architect seem interested in your project? Assessing this is completely subjective, but you want someone who is enthusiastic.
♦ How soon can he start? If he says six months, you should keep looking.
♦ If the firm has a lot of work, will they be able to devote enough time to the kind of residential project you want to do? Ask how many jobs the firm has in progress and how many personnel. If the firm has only three or four people and fifteen jobs, they may not be able to give you much attention.
♦ When you see the architect’s portfolio of completed work, check it for both style and substance. Does the architect seem versatile and comfortable with any number of styles? If you want Spanish mission or Tudor and the architect has never done it, do you think he or she can handle it? If the portfolio shows that the architect is versatile, he can very likely work in a style he hasn’t done before.
♦ Some architects have a marked preference for one or two styles. Do you feel that you are being shoehorned into a style the architect prefers rather than one you prefer? You want to be open to new possibilities, but you are going to live in the house, so follow your gut instincts.
♦ Has the architect worked with a variety of site conditions? This is especially important if you’re considering a site that has a funny shape, a steep slope, or problematic soils.
♦ If you want something really unusual such as steel post-and-beam construction, curving walls, or walls made of straw bales, look for an architect with experience in these specialties.
♦ As the architect develops the design for your house, what will he do to help you understand and visualize what he’s creating? For example, does he make scale models or use a computer to create exterior sketches and interior perspective drawings?
♦ What time frame does the architect propose for designing your house? You should anticipate at least four months and likely more than that if you want a large house with many details.
♦ How long will it take to build the house? Six to nine months is about average.
The attraction of building a custom-designed house is getting exactly what you want. But if you’re too single-minded about it, your dream house can end up costing more than you expect. If you have to drop the price substantially to attract buyers when you eventually sell it, those flyaway rooflines were not just an expensive tour de force of engineering, but they also ate up a good chunk of your equity.
“Unusual” in houses is not just a look, it also applies to a floor plan. You may hate to cook, but having a closet-sized kitchen and a cavernous master suite is not the choice that most future buyers will make. Likewise, separating the master suite from the other bedrooms may provide more privacy, but most buyers, especially those with young children, want the bedrooms close together.
Planning for the eventual sale of a dream house is not how most people approach such a project. Nonetheless, Norman Smith, an architect in Washington D.C., a community where people can move on a moment’s notice and resale is a big issue with all buyers, addresses the resale issue early on.
Though Smith loves to design the unusual, he wants his clients to be very clear at the outset about the potential cost of their design decisions. Smith periodically readdresses the resale issue because he has found that most people get carried away as the design work progresses. He says, “I tell my clients, ‘Someone out there will appreciate this, but you won’t get Joe Smith off the street to buy it right away.’ I try to make them aware of the cost of their money if they can’t sell their house right away, and to weigh the cost of their lifestyle and aesthetic against financial gain.”
In many cases, Smith has found the client can achieve the “something different” with a more traditional floor plan and very unusual treatment of surfaces—walls, floors, cabinetry, and countertops. “This can give a lot more bang for the buck than clients realize. Even more importantly, from a resale perspective, these touches can be easily removed and replaced by a future buyer.”
Another pitfall in custom housing that can affect resale is trendy details that eventually become dated, and in some cases ridiculous, observed architect Carl Hunter of Chicago. When Hunter worked in Los Angeles in the late eighties, owners wanted as tall an entrance door as possible, and houses had fourteen- to sixteen-foot-high doors, or panels above the doors to make them appear that high. These doors opened onto an entry foyer that would have a ceiling that was the same height as the doors, but the floor area was often as small as six by eight feet. “Even then it looked silly, and today it looks like a Hollywood set stuck onto a conventional living room with eight-foot ceilings,” Hunter said.
Another resale issue with very unusual custom houses is the ability of future buyers to get financing. John Colby, an architect, developer, and bank board member in Great Falls, Virginia, pointed out that even if you have buyers willing to pay your price when you eventually sell, the amount of financing they can get depends on how much a lending institution thinks your property is worth. Most banks do this by sending out an appraiser to compare your house to similar ones sold recently, then come up with a dollar amount of what he thinks your house is worth. Colby said the problem comes when your house is so unusual there’s nothing to compare it to. “In that case the appraiser is likely to fall back on standard criteria such as lot size, number of bedrooms, and total square footage. You can’t assume that he will be able to evaluate exotic architecture, unusual detailing, and expensive craftsmanship. And on the basis of the appraiser’s report, the bank may conclude that your house is worth only five hundred thousand dollars, not six hundred and fifty, and approve a loan amount accordingly. If your buyer can’t come up with the other hundred and fifty thousand, he can’t buy your house.”
If things still seem promising, go look at several of the architect’s completed jobs and talk with the owners. Although the architect may want to accompany you, the owners will be more candid if you go by yourself. Don’t worry about intrusive questions—most people are eager to talk about their home-building adventures and will be forthcoming. Questions to ask:
♦ How well did they get along with the architect?
♦ Were there any cost overruns? (This is always a risk when you are building a never-before-built house.)
♦ Did they feel that they got what they paid for?
♦ How well did the architect handle disputes between the builder and the owners? The architect is supposed to be the owner’s advocate for such disputes. Since you and your builder are bound to have a disagreement at some point, the architect’s ability to resolve any disputes quickly and evenhandedly is important.
♦ Does the house include any unusual details that you might want the architect to replicate in your house?
Next, talk to the builders whom the architect has worked with, especially the ones who built the houses that you saw:
♦ How many houses has he built with this architect? If they’ve done a number of jobs together and know each other’s working style, there’s less chance for miscommunication and errors.
♦ Were the architect’s drawings and written specifications useful and informative, useless and confusing, or somewhere in between? The clearer the construction documents, the easier and more smoothly the job will run. If these documents are confusing, errors, misunderstandings, and disputes are more likely to occur.
♦ During construction, was the architect responsive to field questions? If it’s urgent, the architect should be available to answer questions right away. Most of the time, field questions are not that urgent and getting a response within a day is fine.
♦ How often did the architect visit the site and was this a problem? The frequency depends on the stage of construction. At some points, he or she needs to be there two or three times a week. At other times, once a week is adequate.
♦ How well did the builder think that the architect handled client-builder disputes? If the builder also thinks the architect resolved disputes quickly and evenhandedly, it’s a sure sign that the builder likes working with him.
homeplanservices
If you think you’ll never get to first base on a custom house because finding the architect sounds too hard or too expensive, consider purchasing a predrawn plan from a home-plan design service. You can pick a design from a catalog, magazine, or website offering anything from fifty to several thousand plans. You will receive detailed floor plans, all the elevations, and a framing plan. You then engage a builder to add the other required drawings (generally this means plans for the heating and air conditioning, electrical wiring, and plumbing), to get a building permit, and to build it for you.
Although this sounds simple, you will spend as much time searching for the right builder as you would for the right architect. You will save the architect’s fees, of course, but the house will not necessarily be any less expensive to build. Those embellishments that you want to include—varying ceiling heights, fireplaces, a multi-gabled, multi-hipped roofline, a meandering footprint with room extensions, bay windows, and recesses and those granite countertops will quickly drive up the cost.
The plan services charge anywhere from four hundred to several thousand dollars for a design, but you will have to pay additional charges. The builder won’t supply the systems drawings for free. And the plans will very likely require modifications for local climates and soil conditions. For example, if you live in a part of Texas where it rains a lot and order a plan from a service in Arizona where it doesn’t rain much, your builder may have to alter the roof framing and the overhangs. If you live where expansive clay soils necessitate foundation modifications (frequently the case in Colorado and Texas), the builder will have to get the foundation design from your plan service re-engineered. And then there are the specifics of your own lot—the plans are designed as if the site were perfectly flat, but in reality that’s rarely the case.
There are at least a hundred home-plan services. Some are small and local, others are large and market their designs nationally. If there is a service in your area, using it can be advantageous because the designs will already conform to your local climate, building conventions, and building codes. With a local service you may also be able to get the designer to meet with you at your site and discuss changes that would incorporate the view and address the lot orientation and the sun exposures.
For an additional charge, the services will make the needed changes for you. But unless the service is a local one, you’re better off ordering the more expensive reproducibles and having your builder modify them (“reproducibles” are plans that are printed on a special paper so that a draftsman can erase and redraw the parts that need to be changed). Your builder will also charge to make such changes, but having him do it ensures that they will be correctly done to meet the local building-code requirements and your site conditions. Depending on how many changes are required, the added costs could be twenty-five hundred dollars or more. If you have to get the plans re-engineered for your soils, for example, this can drive up the cost further.
The home-plan design services do not usually supply a list specifying the required amount of material for each component of the house in their basic package. This essential piece of information usually costs another fifty to a hundred dollars and specifies only quantity, not quality. An architect’s services include detailed specifications and address quality. If you opt for the plan service, you’ll have to sort out the materials requirements with a builder yourself.
finding a builder
Who will bring all the pieces together and how will you find this person? DesignBasics, a home-plan service based in Omaha, Nebraska, has a national registry of builders who have used their plans (listed on their website, DesignBasics.com). This is a real advantage because a builder who has worked with DesignBasics plans already knows how they must be modified to meet the specific climate and code requirements in your area. Should you choose a plan that the builder has already built, there won’t be any guesswork on the price.
HomeStyles.com, another plan service based in Minneapolis, does not have such a registry, but their website is linked to Improvenet.com, an online service that matches homeowners with builders, and is free regardless of whether you buy a HomeStyles.com plan or not. Using electronic databases, Improvenet screens builders, architects, and designers nationwide for legal and credit problems. Whenever possible, Improvenet also checks licenses, liability insurance, and references. If you choose a professional from Improvenet’s list, he or she pays a finder’s fee. If a contractor or architect is not on its list, Improvenet will screen the firm for a twenty-nine-dollar charge. Though most of Improvenet’s website is devoted to remodeling, they will match up new home seekers with builders.
You can also ask friends, Realtors, or your local home builder’s association for the names of custom builders in your area. Whatever route you take to get the names, though, you still have to go through a winnowing process, similar to finding an architect.
In your initial phone call, ask the builder what kind of houses he usually builds and what size budget he typically works with. If he says a million dollars and you can spend only a third of that, ask him if he’s comfortable working at a smaller scale. You’re not giving away the ranch, at this stage, by giving him a ballpark figure of what you can afford and what size house you want. If your project is too modest, and he’s not interested, you’re saving everyone’s time by learning this at the outset.
When you meet the builder face to face, size up the personality mix. You will be working very closely with the person for a year or more, and the project will be very stressful at times, so you need to get along.
The builder will have a portfolio of finished projects, similar to the architect’s. You should look it over carefully for both style and substance, and consider these questions:
♦ Does the builder have a variety of styles? If he has only one or two, it may be that he’s not comfortable building anything else. If you want something substantially different, he may be unable to deliver it. If he has worked with a variety of styles, he may be comfortable tackling anything and be willing to build what you want. As with the architect, this is your judgment call.
♦ What size house does he routinely build? If he’s used to building houses that are twenty-five hundred square feet or less and you want one that’s thirty-five hundred square feet, the detailing and logistics will be different. Ask him how he would handle a difference of this magnitude.
♦ Be sure to ask if he’s ever built a house using a plan from a home-plan design service, and, in particular, the one that you are considering. If he has, this will be a plus, because he will already know what modifications, if any, will be required.
♦ When you look at the builder’s portfolio, ask how much each house cost. You’ve already given him a ballpark figure of your budget in your first phone call; now ask whether or not he could build something similar for you. You may resist telling him what your true budget is, but if the builder doesn’t know your constraints as well as your goals, he can’t deliver a realistic price or product. It’s a waste of everyone’s time if the builder develops a project and works up a budget for a house you can’t afford to build.
♦ Does the builder have a portfolio of plans? If so, ask to see them. Using the builder’s own plans has advantages—he will know the costs and there will be far fewer unknowns (but every plan, including one designed by an architect, will have a few surprises as the house goes up). Can he modify a plan he knows well and has used before to get the house that you want?
♦ When the inevitable cost-per-square-foot question is posed, don’t be surprised at the inevitable Delphic response, “It depends.” The price does depend on what you put in that square foot. At this initial meeting, though, the builder should be able to give you some parameters so that you can correlate the house size and the finishes you want with your budget.
♦ How soon can he start on your job? If he says six months, give him credit for being candid, but keep looking if you want to start sooner.
♦ Does he carry liability insurance that includes errors-and-omission coverage? This is an important protection for both you and the builder, and you should stipulate that an insurance policy be maintained for the duration of your project.
♦ How many houses does he build at a time? If he says more than three, ask how big his operation is and how many people are working for him. A custom-home project requires keeping track of endless details and scheduling subcontractors and deliveries of materials (many more than with a production-built house). If the builder has only a skeleton office staff, building more than three houses at a time could mean the builder is stretching himself very thin. If the houses are nearly identical or very simple, he could do more with a small staff; but most people who go to a custom builder want a house with many extras.
♦ To get a true comparison among builders, ask each one for a standard specifications sheet. It should list brand names, model numbers, and other descriptive information for every material. Note that many items will be listed simply as “allowances,” meaning that the builder allocates a specified dollar amount in the budget and you select the item yourself. Ask what kind of allowance items you can expect with your budget. Would the ceramic tile be a grade that goes for eighty cents a square foot or one that is twenty dollars a square foot? Would the kitchen cabinets be custom, semi-custom, or stock? Which cabinetmaker does he regularly specify?
♦ Many people find that going through the process of selecting everything can get overwhelming. Does the builder offer help in making the selections? Accompany you to the suppliers?
If you have any promising candidates after your initial meetings, get lists of their former clients, contact several, and arrange to see the builders’ work. Seeing a portfolio is helpful, but seeing a completed house is much more informative. As with the architect, you will get more candid responses if you go by yourself. Ask the same questions that you would of an architect’s clients:
♦ Did you like the builder?
♦ Did your house cost what you expected?
♦ Were his allowances adequate to get what you wanted?
♦ Did you feel that costs were adequately monitored? When you work with a builder directly, he should be monitoring costs at every step so that you will know how much your design decisions are costing you, whether you are at the initial phase and deciding on the shape of the house or further along and looking at bathroom fixtures.
♦ Did he answer questions promptly?
♦ Were you able to resolve disputes amicably?
♦ Was he there every day to check the job?
♦ Did he come back to fix things after you moved in? This is an important point because every house will require minor adjustments after completion.
When you narrow down the builder choices to one or two, engage a private home inspector who is familiar with new construction to help you make that final decision. For each builder, the home inspector can advise you on the quality of construction and on the specifications list. After you’ve hired one, keep the inspector on board to help you fine-tune the spec list and periodically inspect the construction as it goes up. (For more on home inspectors, see Chapter 11; for more on choosing a builder, see Chapter 2.)
Even if you have no interest in buying a design from a home-plan design service and building a custom house, perusing the home-plan websites is a valuable exercise. Since many production builders use plan services, you’ll get a useful overview of what’s out there as well as some practice in correlating house size with floor plans. For example, what do room layouts with twenty-four hundred square feet look like?
There are more than a hundred home-plan service websites. HomeStyles.com and DesignBasics.com both have a huge number of plans posted. HomeStyles.com sorts its designs by house size, number of stories, bedrooms, bathrooms, the car capacity of the garage, and architectural style (they have eleven different styles to choose from). DesignBasics.com sorts its plans by architectural series and total square footage. With both of these services, the plans shown on the web do not have a scale, and the scale of the floor plans for the first and second floors often varies (the first floor will appear larger than the second floor). But after clicking through a number of floor plans, you will begin to get an idea of the possibilities. Houses range from the very small—one-bedroom, one-bath honeymoon cottages of less than five hundred square feet—to the very large six-bedroom, seven-bath houses of palatial proportions with more than nine thousand square feet.
If you purchased the home plans before you hired the builder and bought a lot, be prepared for another essential truth: Not every plan will fit on every lot. Rather than shoehorning the plan onto the lot and changing it beyond recognition, you may be better served by starting over with another plan, selected with the advice of your builder.
design/build:themiddlepath
If you want a design that’s created for you, tailored to your tastes, budget, and site, but you don’t want to hire an architect on a full-service basis, the design/build option could be your ticket. With this approach you hire a custom-home builder who offers design services. After you and the builder have nailed down a construction budget and he gets a fix on your stylistic preferences, he hires a designer for your project. The design fees will be much less than with a full-service architect, but so will the design input.
The builder’s designer may actually be a licensed, registered architect or someone with an architectural degree who is very experienced with residential design but not licensed. The designer may be in-house or hired for just your job. You will meet with him several times, but not nearly as many times as you would if you hired an architect yourself on a full-service basis.
The builder and the architect work together as a team—as the architect develops the design, the builder monitors it for cost, ensuring that it can be built within your budget. The designer will produce only a preliminary, schematic design—enough to get a building permit and to build with, but not the full set of construction documents required for competitive bidding. The job will not be competitively bid—you have already hired a builder—and an experienced builder will already have his own set of details for framing, foundations, and so forth.
Such a stripped-down approach drastically reduces the architect’s fees. Instead of the additional 5 to 15 percent of the construction budget that you would pay to get a full-service package, you may pay only 1 to 5 percent, depending on the region of the country and the size of the house. As a house gets bigger, more design is required, because bigger rooms with higher ceilings require more detailing, or they will look naked. A 2,500-square-foot, $300-thousand house might have a design fee of only $3,000 to $15,000, whereas a 3,500-square-foot, $600-thousand house could have a design fee as high as $20,000 to $30,000—high, but still less than the $30,000 to $60,000 you would pay for an architect’s full-service package.
Most design/build firms require payment of design fees up front. If you go forward with the project, they may credit it to your construction cost.
the design/build team
Since the builder’s architect or designer will not be producing a detailed set of construction documents, you need to have a designer who has worked with the builder on other projects and knows his modus operandi. This will vastly reduce the chance for miscommunication and errors. And much of what the final product will look like is left to the builder’s discretion, so the builder needs to have strong design sensibilities as well as a good sense of scale and detail. In fact, many of the builders who offer design/build services get into it because they are very design oriented. As you talk to different builders who offer design/build, be wary of those who characterize themselves as “bricks and sticks guys” and who regard architects and their “formal training in aesthetics” as unnecessary.
Within the custom-home building arena, there are builders who specialize in the design/build approach. To find the right one for you, you have to go through the same winnowing process that you would if you were buying a plan from a service. Get the names of several design/builders from friends or the local home building association. Ask the same questions that you would of any custom builder (see this page), but also ask them about their design fees:
♦ What size house does he usually build? If it’s significantly larger or smaller than what you want, is he comfortable downsizing or upsizing?
♦ What size budget does he usually work with? Would he be comfortable working with your budget? Remember, you’re not giving away the store by giving him a ballpark figure.
♦ Does he have stylistic preferences?
If things look promising after that first call, meet face to face and ask to see a portfolio of completed work to review, just as you would if you were hiring an architect. At the same time, you also have to ask the same questions you would ask any builder:
♦ Does the builder seem to prefer one style? Some design builders are comfortable working in a wide range of styles, and they may work with as many as ten architects. Others have a more limited stylistic repertoire and work with only one or two. If you don’t see a variety, ask the builder if he has a strong preference for some styles over others.
♦ As you look at the portfolio, ask how much each house cost. Could he build the same thing for you with your budget?
♦ Can you meet the architect whom you would be working with before signing a contract? Since the builder hires the designer, you will have to rely on the builder’s judgment that the person is up to your job. But you still want to feel comfortable working with that person. Unless the builder always works with the same designer, he or she is not likely to be at this initial meeting, because the builder will not know your stylistic preferences in advance.
♦ Is he enthusiastic about your project?
♦ When can he start?
♦ How many houses does he build at a time? How big is his staff?
♦ Will he give you his standard specification list?
♦ What kind of allowances could you expect with your budget and size of house?
♦ Will he help you select materials?
If you want to build your dream house in an old, established neighborhood with good schools and an easier commute to your job, the only vacant lots you’re likely to find are either unbuildable for some reason or have been tied up in a probate court for years while heirs battle it out.
In most metropolitan areas now, the only way to build a new house in a close-in location is to buy an old one, tear it down, and start over. This tear-down solution isn’t as crazy as it sounds—if the house is old enough, but not so old that it has historic value, most of its value is actually in the land under it. If you tear down the house, you haven’t thrown away much. Before you get very far on a tear-down, though, you have to make sure that the money numbers work and that you will be comfortable with the values that you’re ending up with.
Ted Visnic, a Rockville, Maryland, home builder who has constructed several teardown projects in the Washington, D.C., area, said that in his market the general rule of thumb is that the value of the old house and lot should be about thirty to forty percent of the value of the new house and lot. If the old house and lot was worth $120 thousand, the new house and lot should be between $360 thousand and $400 thousand. If you want to add so many things to your house that the total cost comes to $450 thousand, you have to know the breadth of the market for this price range in your area. Will you take a bath at resale if you sell in two or three years? Five or six years?
If the numbers work, the next step is checking current and pending zoning regulations for building heights, lot setbacks, and floor/area ratios. The lot setbacks determine the dimensions for the maximum allowable “footprint”—the outline of the house at ground level. Floor/area ratios define the maximum size in terms of square feet. Since the house you may want to tear down was built, the zoning rules may have changed many times, in some instances in response to the tear-down phenomenon itself.
In many suburbs where tear-downs have become common, long-term residents resent the imposing nature of a large house next to a modest bungalow or one-story ranch. Glencoe, a suburb north of Chicago, now has a “daylight plane rule” to prevent new houses from putting existing ones in shadow. Highland Park, another Chicago suburb, has increased the minimum size of side yards to maintain visual continuity along the street and prevent a new and much larger house from overwhelming the neighbors and looking like a cowbird in a nest of wrens.
While the money numbers and the zoning restrictions are fairly straightforward calculations, the design of the actual house is not. You will need to hire an architect who is experienced in tear-downs and factor his design fees into your costs, because the special conditions that are in the nature of a teardown project call for unique and inventive solutions.
If your chosen location has passed a “daylight plane rule” similar to Glencoe’s, for example, your house may have to step back at each story. If your lot has mature trees that you want to save, you will have to build around their root systems, which could mean an unusual footprint for your house (for more on saving trees, see Chapter 10).
In addition to the building constraints imposed on your own lot, you have to look at the adjacent lots and ask yourself, “What is the worst thing that could happen?” Assume that it will. Your side yard may face the neighbor’s garden now, but a new house built as close to the lot line as yours is may be less than twenty-five feet from yours. Given this possibility, the optimal room arrangement for your new house is to put the secondary spaces (laundry room, den, bathrooms, secondary bedrooms) on the sides and the primary living spaces (kitchen, family room, living and dining rooms, and master bedroom suite) at the front and rear.
Chicago architect Carl Hunter, who has designed a number of tear-downs, says, “You can’t rely on the neighbors’ open space as part of yours, so this type of house has to be more ‘introspective.’ Within the property lines, I design the house as if the side walls are solid with openings to provide privacy, light, and air but no views.”
As the design develops, you may have to jettison some cherished ideas or conveniences such as a two-car attached garage because there’s not enough room on the lot. On the plus side, however, you will be rewarded with some very interesting results. As Hunter observed, “There can be advantages from adversity. The blandest, most mundane architecture occurs on the blandest, most mundane lots.”
Should any of the builders whom you interview seem promising, the next step is to look at the builders’ houses and talk with their former clients. The portfolio will be helpful, but a site visit to the finished work is always much more informative.
While you’re evaluating the work, note the level of design and the presence or absence of any unusual features. If there aren’t any it may be that the builder does not feel comfortable building anything that strays far from the ordinary, and he might constrain the architect from designing anything unusual. If you want something more adventurous, that builder may not be able to deliver it.
Go by yourself to get more candid responses, and ask the same questions that you would if you had purchased a design from a home-plan service and were looking for a builder.
♦ Did you like the builder?
♦ Did your house cost what you expected?
♦ Were his allowances adequate to get what you wanted?
♦ Did he answer questions promptly?
♦ Were you able to resolve disputes amicably? When an architect is on board for the entire project, he resolves disputes. With design/build, you yourself will have to resolve any disputes that arise with the builder. You are certain to have at least one disagreement before the job is done, so this is important to know.
♦ Was he there every day to check the job?
♦ Did he come back to fix all the things that required adjustment after you moved in?
♦ Did you feel that costs were adequately monitored? An important advantage of the design/build approach is that the builder closely monitors costs at every step. You will know how much your design decisions are costing you at every stage. With the traditional full-service architect, he will often get cost estimates from builders on his bid list as he is designing it, but the actual cost will not be known until the project is competitively bid. If it comes in overbid—that is, the cost is higher than you want to pay—portions of the project will have to be redesigned.
As with the predrawn home-plan design service, engage a private home inspector who is familiar with new construction in your area to help you make the final decision when you narrow down the design/builder choices. The inspector can advise you on construction and specifications, and inspect the job as it progresses.
With a custom-built house, you get to choose everything down to the last, nth detail. How far you want to carry the decision making and the fine-tuning—those innumerable small details that make a telling difference—is up to you. Here are some examples:
♦ doors and doorways. If the ceilings in your new house will be nine feet, a higher and wider doorway—thirty-six inches wide and eight feet high, instead of the standard thirty inches width and six-feet, eight-inches height—makes you feel like you’re walking through something.
Then there’s the door itself. In old houses, the act of opening and closing doors is a more deliberate gesture and somehow feels grander because the doors are solid wood. To re-create the same sensation, but at a much reduced cost, you can use a solid-core door made of medium-density fiberboard, instead of the hollow-core Masonite doors favored by most production builders. It will have as much weight as a solid wood door, but it won’t warp. When it’s painted, only a professional painter will know the difference. The heavier doors also provide sound-proofing benefits.
Going a step further, there’s the front door handle. Most home builders provide a plated, polished-brass handle that looks good. A solid brass handle also feels good. When you open the door with it, the handle feels more solid, subtly reinforcing the fact that in entering the house you’re going from “out there” to “in here.” And if your front door handle has a lifetime finish, it won’t tarnish no matter how much weather it’s exposed to.
♦ foyer. A natural stone flooring like marble or granite is definitely a grand gesture. Or you can add a more subtle and elegant look with honed limestone or tumbled marble. With either of these, the tiles are put into a machine that rotates them so that the final product looks hundreds of years old.
Some of the small details that make the difference are really small. If stone flooring in the foyer is a budget buster, Turko Semmes, a custom home builder in San Luis Obispo, California, suggests dressing up a standard oak hardwood floor with a narrow border inlay made up of a two-inch strip of dark brown walnut and a quarter-inch strip of reddish padauk. If you’re using hardwood in other rooms, add the inlay there and this tiny detail will pull the whole house together.
Some small details add both elegance and ease. If the foyer is large enough for a longer stair run, Arlington, Virginia, builder Chip Gruver advises his clients to modify the stair geometry and install a longer twelve-inch tread and a lower six-inch riser. Not only will this make going up and down easier; you’ll also feel more dignified.
♦ walls. When clients decide not to cover up the walls in the formal areas with wallpaper, Gruver avoids unsightly drywall seams and nail pops by “skim coating” the drywall. This involves adding a thin coat of drywall “mud” to the entire wall surface to create a more uniform look.
Noting that “some wall textures are damn near eatable they feel so nice,” Semmes occasionally turns the drywaller loose to come up with something. “I tell the drywaller, ‘I don’t want dead smooth, I want some texture and irregularities, so play with it.’ We do test samples in a closet.” Semmes added that in his experience, “Most tradespeople want to do stuff better. Give them another 5 to 10 percent of their bill and they’ll do some great stuff.”
♦ trim. For details that add panache but are not excessively expensive, Semmes likes faux finishes that mimic stone. “For columns, you can make a piece of wood look so much like stone that you must feel it to know the difference. The real thing, such as granite or travertine, costs a lot of money.” Adding that faux finishes look best when used in small amounts, Semmes also noted that finding a qualified person to do the work is essential.
♦ paint. When it comes to paint, every manufacturer has many different grades. The labor costs in application are generally the same, regardless of which quality you select, but Gruver has found that a higher and more expensive grade will generally last longer. An eggshell finish really does look different up close and, compared to the semi-gloss used by most production builders, it is much easier to clean.
♦ faucets. In the kitchen, architect and builder Leon Goldenberg of Tampa, Florida, recommends the old-fashioned wall-mounted fixtures with separate hot and cold knobs and the faucet placed well above the sink. This imparts a certain look, but it’s also practical. Placing the faucet above the sink makes it easier to fill large pots. This combined with a single large and deeper sink compartment also makes it easier to clean big pots and pans.
♦ cabinets. Semmes’ houses often include a lot of built-in case work—shelving and cabinetry. To give the wood a luster and depth that nearly everyone notices, he adds a coat of paste wax and machine buffs it after applying a stain and a protective sealer like lacquer, varnish, or urethane.
Cabinet knobs are not an item that most buyers think about, but very plain cabinets “sing with good hardware,” Semmes said. An extra five hundred to a thousand dollars will get you onyx, malachite, copper, and aluminum combinations and unusual woods such as ebony and rosewood.
If such exotic fare is not in your budget or to your taste, try to get a modest cabinet knob upgrade. The standard knobs don’t hold up well. At the very least, get a simple solid-brass knob.