[Adriana's Mommy]

Has anyone had a house built for them? If so, how long did it take?

On Wednesday, my DH and I are going with our realitor to start the plans on building our house.. Which is going to be oh so much fun, since my DH won't let me get what I want.. lol **I want the expensive stuff.. lol** But I heard sometimes the builders can go pass the deadline.. Did this happen to you? I know our realitor said we are going to write into our contract with the builder that it has to be done by this day or they will have to pay us $100 a day for everyday it's late.. Which isn't a bad deal.. But if things go to plan, we should be ready to move into the home in September.. I'd hate it to be in October because that's when I'm due.. I would be so useless then..

Oh, here's the plan my DH and I decided on.. It's a 4 bedroom 3 bath, split level rancher style home.. We were looking at getting a 2 story house, but my DH really wants to have a basement for the family room/game room/ computer room.. He wants to set up a movie theater down there with the projector and other stuff. Basically it's the "man cave".. lol What we liked about having a basement is that it's cool down there in the summer time and when my DH friends come over for football season or movies, he can blast the surround sound and not worry about waking up the kids because the kids bedroom and the master bedroom is on the main floor ..



Oh, if anyone is looking into a buying a home.. It's cheaper to build a home then to buy one that's already existing.. But there are some cons to building a home, you have landscaping and fencing to worry about.

[Resi]

We had a home built in 2006 around this time. It was done on time. I think it took around 30-40 working days. They started breaking the ground in June and we closed August 17th.

We got a two story. If we could do it over again we would have bought a one story with a basement. The basement would have been wonderul for stroage, the cats, and fish tanks. We want to sell out house as soon as the housing market picks back up and buy something else. Good luck with your new home!

[midnight_starr]

Our house is brand new but we didn't actually come across it until it was finished being built, but our friends are building the one next door and all together they told them it would take about 4 months, but now it looks like it will be done in 3.. The thing that can usually hold up them being finished with it on time is the weather because they can't work on it in the rain.. You are going to just love having a brand new house!!!

[Adriana's Mommy]

Thank you ladies for your responses.. I believe our builder gets their houses built in 3 months and they say building in the summer time is much better then winter time.. But I've had a few co-workers tell me that they can go past the deadline.. I was a little nervous about that..

Resi, thank you for your comment about your house.. I really liked the 2 story house because it looked bigger then the split level home.. But I do like the idea of keeping the kitty stuff in the utility room which is in the basement.. I guess it would be hard to hide it if it was a 2 story house.. Good luck with selling your house.. I know that it hard to do in this market..

[IamMom]

We had the house we are living in built for us - but it was a sweet deal. We didn't actually "buy" the house until it was done.....so we didn't have to buy the land and then pay as it was built etc. etc. We did get to pick the floor plan, brick, shutters, etc. etc. from certain plans and designs the builder had available. I called it "build a house by numbers". I would have been way overwhelmed to built a truly custom home. Anyway - our builder broke ground in Sept or Oct and it was finished by early February. But well within when we wanted it finished by.

I think your house is going to be fabulous - congrats! And I hope its done by the time you have that baby!!!

[soImarriedAnerd]

I know my parents last house we lived in was built and the builders went 7 MONTHS over!!! It was a huge PITA we had to move out of the other place because it sold and live in a crappy apartment because it was the only thing that would go monthly for rent. I have tons of friends who have built and about 90% of the time they are done on time. Good thing about the economy now---builders aren't to busy LOL so it should get done in time.
MAKE SURE YOU PHYSICALLY go check on them ALOT---I have heard SO MANY stories from my friends about them catching issues with the builders while building.

[~Jess~]

I agree with Angela, a custom home is more likely to go over schedule than a semi-custom. We did a semi-custom and it took 4 months, they finished on schedule. And check on them a lot. We went every day after work and caught so many errors that we wouldn't have noticed if we didn't go every day. For example, they dry-walled our garage WITHOUT insulation. We paid extra for the insulation and we wouldn't have known if we weren't keeping close tabs.

Our home also came standard with all fencing and front yard landscaping. We just had to landscape the backyard ourselves.

[Resi]

Originally Posted by Adriana's Mommy

Thank you ladies for your responses.. I believe our builder gets their houses built in 3 months and they say building in the summer time is much better then winter time.. But I've had a few co-workers tell me that they can go past the deadline.. I was a little nervous about that..

Resi, thank you for your comment about your house.. I really liked the 2 story house because it looked bigger then the split level home.. But I do like the idea of keeping the kitty stuff in the utility room which is in the basement.. I guess it would be hard to hide it if it was a 2 story house.. Good luck with selling your house.. I know that it hard to do in this market..

It will be a lot easier to control the temperture in a one story too. It's always so hot upstairs and cold downstairs. It also gets old going up and down for everything in a two story. We most likely won't try to sell our home for another couple years.

[Adriana's Mommy]

Thank you ladies for the great help.. We will be watching the builders when they put up the house.. Our Realitor will also be watching them and he's really good at picking out everything wrong.. Our Realitor helped a few of our friends build houses, so we know he's good.

Originally Posted by I Love Harrison Boo

We had the house we are living in built for us - but it was a sweet deal We didn't actually "buy" the house until it was done.....so we didn't have to buy the land and then pay as it was built etc. etc. We did get to pick the floor plan, brick, shutters, etc. etc. from certain plans and designs the builder had available. I called it "build a house by numbers". I would have been way overwhelmed to built a truly custom home. Anyway - our builder broke ground in Sept or Oct and it was finished by early February. But well within when we wanted it finished by.

I think your house is going to be fabulous - congrats! And I hope its done by the time you have that baby!!!

Thank you.. We have the similar deal like you, we get 5% off the price. What a deal huh? We don't pay a dime until we close on the house.. It's going to be fun picking out the "extras".. We are also doing a semi-custom home.. The house in the picture was a sweet deal too.. I think it ran for 197K, but my DH didn't like the location.. Which is important to us, since we are going to be in the house for a long time..

[Mars]

We built our home but I don't think I can compare it to the ones in the US.

The style above looks great. Best of luck!

When we build our home we went originally with standard finishes to reduce the cost. After we got settled, we started changing things to suit what we wanted. You get a lot nicer and cheaper things in the US so you may not have to go this route. Here, nice finishes are ridiculously expensive.