Building a House

[Farmer123]

My wife and I are planning on building a house in the spring of 2018. We have 2 acres of land that is pretty close to ready with some excavating needed.  We are going to have the excavator come out within the next few weeks to check out the property and get his thoughts before we start meeting with builders. The plan is to price out three local builders that we have already found.

We have been looking at floor plans for the last 6 months or so and writing down all of the things we for sure want. We have not met with any builders and have no floor plans drawn yet.

With being 18-20 ish months away from building, what do you suggest our time frame looks like? When should we be meeting with builders? Are we currently behind?

I would like to get a rough timeline of events to make sure we follow the correct order.

When to get permits, septic, well, meet with builders, draw up floor plans, etc..?

Any tips would be appreciated! Thank you for any help!
 

[Jmoody10]

Your schedule really depends on how your are financing it. If it is all cash, take all of the time you need (just use weather resistant materials if construction will sit for a while).

If you are doing a construction loan, you'll likely have a 1 year loan with renewal options. My wife and I took 2.5 years to construct our house and had to renew our loan a few times (no additional cost for us - just paperwork). At the later stages, interest can start to add up though.

Here is a generic timeline that you can use - no dates, just steps in a rough order: http://www.buildahouseyourself.com/your-master-building-schedule

We had our plans done before meeting with any builders. After getting their prices, we opted to build most of the house ourselves.

Spend a lot of time thinking about your plans. If this will be a forever kind of home, think about structural items to spend a bit more on. For example, our area is dominated by 2x4 walls, shingle roofs, and no overhangs. We live in the southeast so this home plan is stupid. We built our house with 2x6 walls, extra insulation everywhere, a metal roof, larger (2') overhangs, etc.

[Syonyk]

Hm... 18-20 months... you might be behind schedule. ;)

Serious suggestion, though, having gone through this process recently: Have you considered a manufactured home?  They're a whole lot quicker - ours went from "signing the paperwork" to "installed" in about 4 months, and a bunch of that was waiting on the foundation folks to get time to pour the concrete.

We've got a 2k sq ft double wide, and it's easily as well built as a stickbuilt home - I did a factory tour and came away very impressed (I've done enough construction work over the years to have a faint idea as to what I'm looking at).  Other than the floor plan being "obviously manufactured home," you really can't tell from the inside.

With 2 acres, you can go with a single story home and avoid stairs, which we thought was nice.  More roof area for rainwater collection and solar as well.

All I can say with the permit process is, "Start early."  It'll take longer than you think, and you'll learn more weird things about permitting than you ever wanted to know.