If you think about building your next home from the ground up, the process can seem super overwhelming. Thinking about every step. material. design decision, the timeline – it’ll make your head spin! I’m here to break the beginning chunk (before actually building) all down for you, phase by phase. I hope this helps you if you’re starting your journey to building your forever home!
This process is different for everyone, so if your journey looks a little different than ours, don’t worry. There isn’t only one right way to build a home!
Get Your Finances In Check
First, before you get attached to something you can’t afford and break your own heart like I did, figure out what your budget is. If you’re paying all cash that’s amazing and I need to know your ways. If you’ll be doing part cash and part loan, like us, then you’ll need to talk to a lender. We got a recommendation through our realtor that we’ve been with for years, but you can totally shop around and find a great lender on your own too. Get a pre-approval with your actual numbers on it, what you can actually afford. Once you have that you’ll know what you’re working with and what’s out of the question, no matter how much you love it. It creates a boundary and gives you blinders so you don’t get overwhelmed with all of the things you can’t even buy.
Find Your Land
This process is a little different if you’re building with a spec home builder, or in a housing community where you walk into their one stop shop and pick a lot. As convenient as that process would be, we always knew that we didn’t want to live in a housing edition or a community where the neighbors would be right on top of us. That means we have to find our own lot either out in the country or outside of town. There are many places to look for land, but your best bet is to start with a realtor. Get with someone who knows land, who knows the community and area very well, and who will do their best to find the perfect location for you. You can check online on listing sites, but with the way the market is going those lots are probably gone before you even ask about them. Your best bet is finding a realtor and handing this part of the process over to them.
Find Your Builder
Although building our own house with our own hands would save us thousands of dollars, it would cost us all of our sanity and years of ours life would be gone from stress. It’s not a realistic option for us, so we’re using a builder. We are still in the planning stage so I haven’t nailed down my builder, but here are some things I’m checking out while shopping around.
- Do they have good reviews, and many of them? Are the reviews made by people who have actually built with them, or just family and friends hyping them up? I also want to see the negative reviews, what went wrong, and how they handled it.
- Are they BBB accredited, as well as awarded any other awards or titles?
- Years of experience building custom homes in different styles with different materials and design features so I know they have a wide range of skills
- In my price range and willing to work with my budget
There are others, but these are my top priority. I need to make sure the builder is good, trustworthy, and in my budget.
Plan Your Build
I started this phase YEARS ago. Literal years ago. When we got our first apartment I immediately knew I didn’t like that lifestyle, I wanted a house, and I would prefer that nobody lived in it before me. Call me crazy, but it’s what I’ve always wanted. I had no knowledge of the building process so I just googles “home builders near me,” emailed them, and got their free catalogue in the mail. I started marking up their floor plans like crazy, comparing prices, planning as if they were my builder and I’d build tomorrow. Flash forward 5 years and 1 house later, it’s still my dream.
I started Pinterest boards to save my inspiration, followed hundreds of people on Instagram who were building their own homes, and found more floor plans online. I’m so happy I started this super early because through finding new design elements and new info, my taste has changed. I now have a bit of a more refined taste for certain styles and I’m not overwhelmed with all of the design styles I know I won’t even be using.
Start picking things out early. Pick out a floor plan you like, or don’t, but just know that whatever you prepare and bring to the table will need to work with the type of lot you have. If you have a completely flat lot, a walkout basement may be hard to do, for example. You don’t want to fall in love with a floor plan and elevation that won’t work, but you still need to have an idea of what you want and like so you and your builder have something to jump off of. It’s a balance.
Meet With Your Team
You have your builder picked out, now it’s time to meet with them and let them start guiding you. Up until this point it probably felt like the weight of the world was on your shoulders and you had to make every decision and move yourself. Letting your builder take the lead on the process will save you some stress. Make sure when you meet with them you bring all of your inspiration you’ve been collecting, including floor plans you like. They’ll be able to tell you if your floor plan would be in budget and if your preferred foundation (basement, walkout, etc.) will work on your lot.
All builders are different, but most of them offer a free consultation meeting before signing on with them. Many of the ones I have reached out to will also give you rough estimates and answer any questions without you having to sign a contract with them. Gathering knowledge won’t hurt. Just make sure you don’t get stuck in the research phase forever.
This is where I would say the beginning phase of building ends. Now you have your team set, your budget is ready, you have your land, you have some design meetings scheduled, and you’re starting to think about finalizing your floor plan. The next phase is when all the action starts. I’ll be going into detail on this phase a little later down the road. Hopefully we will be in this phase soon and I can share more personal experiences with you all.
I hope you found this little summary of the beginning phase of building a house helpful! Check out my other posts on building a house here! I would also love to connect on instagram and see your new home if you are building!
Thank you so much for reading!
