Building your own home is exciting and overwhelming all in one. If you have been weighing the odds of buying versus building and have determined that you can build, you need to find a good architect and/or builder. After all, buying opposed to building is very different with an entirely new set of rules. Although not intended, many people building a home find they have to stay more involved than they would like to keep the progress on schedule.
For starters, never go with the first architect or builder you meet. That does not mean you would not go back to that individual but you want to talk to a number of professionals so you can choose the best person for the job. With this, you want to look at the quality of other homes built by this person, make sure the architect/builder is licensed, bonded, and insured, ask for references, check schedules to see how close homes are completed to that schedule, and so on.
Now, some people will become their own contractor in which case you would need to be on site every day. You would also have the full responsibility or coordinating the drywallers with the plumbers with the electricians with the flooring professionals, and so on. As you can imagine, this job is huge and requires tons of patience, responsibility, and knowledge. Therefore, unless you understand the building industry, we suggest you find a contractor or builder to do all this for you. When choosing your builder, you want to ask yourself questions such as:
* Would this builder be hired in the future to build you another home?
* Is the quality of work to your standards?
* Does the builder and all the subcontractors have a good relationship with respect?
* Does the builder get houses done on time?
If you know of someone who has recently built a home, then you might consider talking to that person’s architect or builder. If not, you might check with your local Chamber of Commerce, the Better Business Bureau, or your local phone book to locate builders but again, they all need to go through scrutiny, regardless of how you find them. Just as finding the right builder is important finding the right architect is also just as important.
In this case, you might want a custom home, which means looking for and working only for the best architect possible. In addition to creating the home of your dreams, the architect should listen carefully to the things important to you but for safety purposes, design a structurally sound home. It all boils down to keeping your options open and taking the required time to find the best your money can afford. The result will be a magnificent new home to enjoy.