When the opportunity to build a home for the first time finally presents itself, the family in question is usually very excited and happy about the future. To be the owner of your home is a very special thing that not everyone has the luck to experience. The cost of living and building even a small home from scratch in the modern-day and age is extremely difficult and challenging, mostly due to the bad economy and the crazy circumstances of the world.
For these and many other factors, it is of the utmost importance that the future homeowner and first time home builder take a very careful and calculated approach and evaluate every single thing there is. If they mean to build the best home they possibly can, experience financial losses, or end up with a home they dislike, a wide array of things have to be considered.
In this article, however, we will talk about the most common mistakes most home builders make with their first home. If you manage to avoid these annoying and costly mistakes, everything else will prove easier and end up exactly how you want it. To find out more about the best way of building a home and to hire the best contractor to help you in the Macungie, Pennsylvania area, make sure to check out Long Ridge Construction. Of course, hiring unskilled workers is the easiest way to a disaster, but here we will walk about three of the less known and less thought about factors.
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1. Not speaking with the builders and contractors enough early on
The absolute number one mistake that you can make, as well as the most important one to avoid, is not speaking to the people in charge of building your home early in the process. Most things require careful and thoughtful planning, let alone the construction of an entire home you will spend decades in and where your children and grandchildren will grow up. Before anything happens, and before you even purchase a piece of land, it is crucial that you talk to the builder and anyone else whose services and products you will be using.
Find everyone you need and get them on the same page before the plans are drawn up and before the initial stages of the construction process. If you fail to do so, the home you end up with is hardly going to be the one you perceived and the one that the architect drew up and the 3D modeler made using special software. Furthermore, if you are not actively talking to everyone, they might make crucial decisions instead of you and go on with the plans you never agreed on simply to finish the home. More material could be wasted, or things could be done without care or quality. Therefore, right from the start, talk to the people building your home and everything will proceed much smoother.
2. Agreeing to a badly estimated quote
During the negotiations with a constructor or a builder, they will give you very rough estimates about the time needed to complete the project, as well as what the total cost is going to be. Of course, it is impossible to pinpoint the exact price before things start to happen, but an experienced company will at least give you a close estimate. Remember that most of them like to give the lower end of the price range, both to prolong the discussion and to slowly add fees and additional costs along the way. To prevent this, ask them to make a detailed list of all the costs that have to be there, as well as certain expectations or estimates.
No matter how much planning you do, the estimate will never be accurate nor final. To be in the clear and to sleep better at night, you will need a final quotation that will cover things like engineering reports, all the needed documentation, schedules, and all the services from third-party contractors. Comparing prices on rough estimates is no way to do business, which is why you should aim for a full, detailed quote and a fixed price. This takes time to write up and could take a few weeks, but you will at least know exactly how much you will pay. These documents usually contain dozens of pages, usually between 20 or 30, and contain brochures, drawings, and everything needed for the construction of a home. In addition, everyone working on the home will be listed.
3. Having unrealistic expectations
While the two aforementioned largely have to do with the people you hire for the job, this final one has to do with nothing but the future homeowner’s expectations and wishes. Being unrealistic and expecting too much is the best recipe to be unsatisfied and unhappy with your home. This is true for all things in life, especially with something big. As human beings, we tend to be overly excited and overly eager about things we want most, which is when some people either become too controlling to make sure everything goes smoothly, or too unrealistic in the sense they want the impossible. Remember that you have a certain budget, that the piece of land has its limitations, and that the general practices of building homes have their rules.
This means that not everything you imagined can actually be done, so lower your expectations or at least keep them realistic. If you cannot have the home you want, do not blame the people working on it, the land, the material, or something or someone else. Invest more if you can, and if you cannot maybe you should wait a bit longer until you can have all of the things you want in your ideal home. After all, you deserve happiness and comfort, and so does your family. Do not settle for less but also try to be reasonable. Last but not least, there are numerous things to do after the home has been built, including interior design, furniture, and other elements, as well as the surrounding of the home. If you use up all of the ideas and spend all of the money on one thing, you will suffer elsewhere.
Conclusion and Takeaways
These are only some of the major mistakes that people tend to make. As you can see, they mostly have to do with bad planning, not being involved, and being unrealistic. Once you manage to find solutions to these crucial challenges, there is no reason to believe that your home will be something you did not want or expect.
