Building a house... do you have any good home builders in your area?

[robzilla]

Im trying to decide on what type of house to build. This one is going to be the house that I will probably be in for the rest of my life, so im going to go all out. I have been looking at a ton of house plans, but still cant find the perfect one. Do u have any builders in your area, that build decent homes and have their house plans on their websites? Thanks.

[I/O]

I don't know about any current builders. But I will say most of the crap put up today is worthless. You may want to go a different route. Get an older property and completely gut it. My brother recently went this route as opposed to building from the ground up.

Another tip I recently came across......get it into the contract that you will pay the last 25% of your tab only when you are 100% satisfied. Builders/contractors are hungry and need to eat. Property and work done will settle no matter what route you go. Things may look a lot different months down the road. Walls, doors not closing, leaks/gaps appear much later than the 1st day of completion.

Also, 95% of the posters in this place are either ghosts, live with mama, or rent.

[cecil127]

if youre in south eastern pa youre in luck....or Syracuse area. other than that, your guess is as good as mine.

[The Kraken]

East Texas

[robzilla]

I don't know about any current builders. But I will say most of the crap put up today is worthless. You may want to go a different route. Get an older property and completely gut it. My brother recently went this route as opposed to building from the ground up.

Another tip I recently came across......get it into the contract that you will pay the last 25% of your tab only when you are 100% satisfied. Builders/contractors are hungry and need to eat. Property and work done will settle no matter what route you go. Things may look a lot different months down the road. Walls, doors not closing, leaks/gaps appear much later than the 1st day of completion.

Also, 95% of the posters in this place are either ghosts, live with mama, or rent.

you're right, probably not the best place to ask for advice. thanks for the tip.

[downsouth]

Several variables to consider. Right now, your inventory of available homes still allow you to buy something cheaper than you can build it in most areas so that's to be considered. I'm a landlord for a living and even recently I have managed to buy houses at a substantial discount to what I would pay to build them new and these are homes that are generally less than 10 years old(generally age I try to stay within as older homes tend to require more maintenance sooner).

If your set on building for other reasons (specific property you want or whatever) then I would look into some online architectural sites, for relatively cheap you can get access to quite a few home plans. If you building a fairly expensive house that you plan on staying in for the rest of your life you may even want to look into hiring one to draw up plans for you.

If you call up any generic builder your usually going to get just a set of generic s/d plans. Not a bad starting point and if your living in middle America probably a decent spot for you to choose from. Plans can generally be adjusted if there are certain things you want to change.