Little backstory. My father owns a custom home company, I've worked with him for 10 years as well as I've been a construction manager for a large home company for several years. I've got construction experience, but never as the customer.

We are getting some family land for a good price in Youngsville, and plan on building a home. Our home up here in VA has just gone under contract, we will be back by May 1 and plan to start building by Jul/Aug.

Its a 9 ac total tract with 8yr old growth (some trees are 10" or so). The piece of property butts up to a subdivision stub out road, so we will just use that road to access the property (we have the rights).

My father has given us a rough number of our cost to build the 2100 sq ft house at $85-$100 a foot. I'll be doing some of the work myself to save money, as well as using builder pricing for the entire thing.

$200K is something we can plan for, my question is what can we expect for the unknown when building a house? Well, septic (or county water hookups), plans, costs before the construction loan takes over etc. What other costs can we associate with this project that will either need to be added in, or paid for out of pocket?

How does the construction loan process work? The house will be built under my fathers company, however I'll be the "builder". We've got a bank local that has worked with us for 15+ years on construction loans.

Any direction that you can provide would be great!

3/7/2016 2:40:27 AM

when you get the loan, your credit is approved for a "construction loan" and that allows you to pay out money to the contractor and subcontractors, buy supplies to do stuff yourself, etc

when the house is built, they will run your credit again for the 30 year loan

do not buy a car, open too many credit cards (none is a good number) before the final closing, it could fuck up your debt to income and you could lose the house

this happened to a friend, after the house was built and before closing, they bought a shitload of furniture and stuff and financed it, they were going to lose the house and land, luckily parents were willing to co-sign

you may already know this, but if you or anyone else reading this doesn't, I have done my good deed for the year.


also whatever you think things will cost, always think 110%, just trust me, do it


also ask every subcontractor for a cost estimate before they do work, and to explain what they are going to do, I actually told one to fuck off cause he was so far out of line on cost and he just started telling my wife a bunch of bullshit, not knowing I had done my homework

3/7/2016 3:13:40 AM

Damn, hate to hear the car thing. With my wife's job ending when we move back to NC, we will need a car. Of course we would do this immediately after closing April 25th, and wouldnt be starting the house until July/Aug.

[Edited on March 7, 2016 at 10:28 AM. Reason : .]

3/7/2016 10:28:04 AM

nothing to add, but does this mean you'll be washing cars in raleigh again?

3/7/2016 12:37:23 PM

Ahh, I may do one or two on the weekends for some gun money

[Edited on March 7, 2016 at 1:21 PM. Reason : .]

3/7/2016 1:20:58 PM

I'm in a similar boat, but I actually co-own the company so banks won't lend us money to build our own house, so we had to go through a private lender. Then we'll have to refinance with a bank to pay the guy back.

But if I understand what you're asking, I'd say appliances, furniture, grading and landscaping might get overlooked and be $15-20K. I would think $85/sqft should be plenty if you're doing some work and not paying profit, but I don't know how fancy you're getting with cabinets and floors, trim, etc.

I'll let you know what pops up for me, we're clearing our lot today actually and it's my first house, so I'm about 4 months ahead of you, hopefully be done by Aug 1.

3/8/2016 9:51:30 AM

Cool man, exciting.

I'll be doing my own clearing (most of it anyway), all grading, all trash removal, all landscaping and driveway work. We've got a bobcat with my fathers company, so I'll just do that myself. Highly likely that we will do some tile work and painting ourselves, but who knows.

3/8/2016 2:45:24 PM