Are you ready to starting building your dream home. House plan designs are abundant and easy to customize. Just getting started can sometimes be quite confusing.
There's nothing more exciting than building your dream home. Take a look at your living area now. What would you change? The floor plan for more open space, the flooring or maybe add more windows.
Does your house plan design include a big kitchen with a bar or a spacious family room. Get your family members together and sketch out your ideas. Make your dream come true.
Planning is crucial, therefore have a well developed house plan design and put it in action. Knowing what features you need will simplify the process. Consider all your needs when deciding on a home plan. Advance planning will pay off.
New Home Construction & Planning
Carefully research your house plan and make sketches of your own for comparison. Often planners will customize pre-designed house plans that will functionally meet your needs. Deciding on a house plan should be fairly easy.
- Fitting everything in the budget is where the compromises come in. Those beautiful hardwood floors, the lighting, wood burning fireplace. The finishing cost can be quite amazing.
- This is where you begin to work backwards for instance, tile or wood, fireplace or not, windows everywhere or could you possible get by with a few less.
- Have a well thought plan when deciding to build. Once you have decided on a house plan design and interior materials. Take a copy of your plan to a few building supply stores and they will be glad to give you an estimated building material cost.
- Should you work with pre-designed plans or hire an architect. Pre-designed house plans are incredibly cheap ranging from $350 to $600 as opposed to hiring an architect.
A good architect will charge between 7 and 12 percent of the total cost of the house. So you're looking at around $10,000 per $100,000. A pre-designed home plan adds up to less compromises when it comes to building cost.
Hiring A House Contractor
Should you hire a contractor or take this on yourself? I would probably say no to doing this yourself unless you have plenty of free time or are retired. The downside hiring your own subcontractors is that you will probably end up paying top shelf price for their work, unless you're really good at negotiations.
Another problem you will face is dependability. In the busy season of home building, guess who's not going to get service when a contractor calls the crew you have working for you. They are going to pull off your house to take another job for a contractor that uses them regularly. Unless you have experience in the building process, hiring a contractor will insure the building of your home in a timely manner.
Homeowners Insurance
One important thing to consider before building your home is the cost of your homeowners insurance. Insurance rates are higher for wood frame homes as compared to brick homes. Also, homeowners premiums can sometimes double or triple for homes built outside five miles from the city limits. Always check with your insurance agent for a homeowners quote before building.
NOTE: Fire Rating Zones are determined by the distance to the nearest responding fire department. If you are building your home within five miles from a fire station you can expect much lower rates than those offered to someone living in a rural area. Also bear in mind that a wood frame home is much more expensive to insure compared to stone or brick. Insurance companies consider a home that is at least 60% brick, the same as an all brick home, resulting in lower insurance rates.
