3 Tips for Building Your Retirement Home
What if you could get three tips for building your home from a very experienced home builder, a very experienced real estate attorney, and a very experienced real estate broker? Would that advice be worth reading? Well, here it is, but let me say at the outset, most people who have not had a home built before will probably not appreciate what his behind years of experience from the school of hard knocks. Usually, as human beings, we don’t realize our need for information or the relevance of information until we get burned badly. Well, here are three key tips that have relevance for building your retirement home in Sequim or Port Angeles, and hopefully this information will be useful and help you avoid the all-too-common nightmare scenario of conflict with a contractor.
1. Meet with two or three builders, discuss your home building plans, and discern the differences between builders.
Find out if your builder can actually build your home with the vision you have. Most builders, especially since the recession, have restricted their building to a limited number of floor plans, and they do not allow deviations, and if they do, the additional costs may be outrageous. What you want, to state the obvious, is a home builder who will build the home of your dreams without compromising quality at a price within your budget. While many builders will nod their heads yes, yes, yes, and have you sign a contract, many clients find out they did not get what they thought they bargained for. For many builders, it is a business and a numbers game. But not for you. Find a builder who has the kind of integrity to get on the same sheet of music as you.
2. Compare builders on prices and their contract terms.
Here is where the greatest trap is for the unwary but honest client. The vast majority of clients will use the lowest bid as the number one and only determining factor in selecting a builder. I know, you’re thinking, “that can’t be true. I would never do that.” But after all the years of being in business for the three experts mentioned above, this really is t, tretruee–to the detriment of many good people.
It is so easy for a contractor to look at someone else’s bid and undercut it. Every time. Of course, you should not show the bids to the next contractor. Let them do their own bid without any idea what the other bids are. But here’s where it gets tricky, because builders have learned the games and many know how to. Getou is to sign a contract. Many bids do not include basic or standard materials or fixtures that another bid may include. Be sure you are comparing apples with apples.
Once you do have two or three bids in hand, go back to the higher bidder and have him explain why his bid is higher. You may be surprised to learn that his bid may not actually be higher when you find out what the other contractors left out that you will have to add later, after you have signed the contract.
3. Discern differences in construction quality.
If only clients could know what goes on behind the scenes during the construction of a home. There are so many shortcuts that subcontractors and a general contractor can take, it would shock most clients if they found out. Many homes look good when they are finished, but if the clients only knew what was not done under the house, in the concrete, in the walls during framing or insulating, in the attic, and so on. I once had a client who showed up one day after it had been raining, and the subs were actually trying to close in the walls even though they had not been dried out with heaters since the rain, and the sub-flooring and walls were visibly wet. Can you imagine the mold that could build up in the walls without you knowing it until years later?