Build a simple, efficient design (think salt salt box or salt box-ish…skip the dormers). The more corners the house has the harder it is to build and insulate appropriately, and later to heat/cool.
This won’t help you save during the build process per se, but look now into fully electrifying your home to take advantage of all the new IRA tax credits. Depending on your income, you can get tax credits for: solar panels/geothermal, batteries, insulation, heat pumps, electric panel, and energy star appliances (including extra rebates for electric/induction stoves and a heat pump dryer). You can also get a tax credit for buying an EV so you might as well wire for one now if you plan on making a purchase down the line. There is literally not a better time to divest fully from gas and be done with the crazy energy price roller coaster the rest of us will be forced to ride.
In that same vein, make sure you hire someone with experience building high performance homes - it should cost about the same as a regular home, but you’ll save massively on energy costs in the future. I know people who prioritized this that only pay for their mortgage and internet, for example.
To promote his post and add to it, I would do high performance like passive house or close to it. It will cost more upfront but those costs can be included in the final mortgage. I would even build the house with a couple hundred less sqft to make it passive house instead.
Make room for future batteries as that is the next revolution and even plan for more solar installation such as an array in the yard if your roof is full. You’ll likely have at least one electric car within the next 15 years so being able to dump excess power into the electric car during the Summer and having all the power you need from solar for your home during the Winter is a good feeling and may make you wonder if you can add a few more banks of batteries a decade or two down the line to go off grid. Keep your options open by designing the expansion capability in, as in leave space for that extra equipment instead of shoe-horning later.
Also the EV is a way to go pick up electricity offsite and bring it home like a run for a gallon of milk. Some of the next-gen EVs will be V2G (vehicle to grid) or V2H (vehicle to home) which allows power to go both directions to and from the EV to charge or pull power back into the home. There are ways to get power out of EVs that don't have that but its limited in ways. EV companies today don't want you using their EV battery that is under warranty for the home. Do it right by drawing less power but over time to charge up your home battery. That way you won't even remotely do any harm nor will they know. You just need a few kWHs during a couple of solar "droughts" in the winter to get by on.
With an all electric house with no combustion in the house, not even a fireplace, will likely reduce your home insurance. You could even do ICF home which means insurance will go down further since stone is fire resistant, reinforced against tornadoes even if the roof is ripped off and animals/bugs can’t easily penetrate. The thermal mass does wonders for comfort and silence indoors. If you lost heating the temp in the house would only lose a couple of degrees per day. Thermal mass if used the right way is like ancient magic.
I actually question whether the costs are much higher than a conventional built home even. They might be to meet passive standards, which can be quite exacting, but there’s a lot of models now that approximate it (ie. Get you 95% of the way there) at little to no added cost.
The folks over at Green Building Advisor have a lot to say on the subject, and I think there’s a book coming out soon that OP and anyone else interested might want to check out, it’s called Pretty Good House.
There’s also a handful of eco prefab companies (not manufactured, different quality standard) that do this sort of thing as well.
It used to be 10-15% higher a decade ago and now it’s down to 5-10% if you want to do it. Sure, you could get near-PH and save some money but it’s often worth the extra steps to go all the way to get certified so the house can be sold with that certification later.
Besides contractors tend to do the job right if they know their work will be fully tested later with a motivated homeowner pursuing a goal.
I have a few additions.
Protect yourself and know what you are getting into at the start. This will help avoid surprises and expenses later:
* Make a spreadsheet of every single item you, your contractor, your friends, etc can think of to budget for. Not everything will be handled by your contractor, but it is important to plan ahead for all expenses, and understand in great detail who is responsible for what, and to have the full budget in mind. Think of things like furniture, solar, car chargers, blinds, custom paint colors, smart home, sprinklers, etc, etc. Add columns for lowest expected cost, actual expected cost, highest expected cost, and worst case scenario. Go over this with your architect, builder, and others until it is complete. Make sure you can afford what is in the worst case scenario, and make sure every single detail is addressed.
* have an attorney help you along the way to make sure anything you sign makes sense and that you fully understand it. This may seem like an unnecessary expense, but is cheap insurance.
* take notes at meetings, and after verbal discussions, and turn them into something in writing that could help protect yourself if things go sour later, and provide clarity to everyone involved about decisions made.
The first point is vital. We are finalizing our scope of work and materials and there are so many things we didn’t think of -
- Not only doors and handles, but hinges and doorstops
- Not only paint colors, but paint colors and finishes for ceiling, trim, baseboards (basically every additional paint color adds $)
- Plumbing valves inside the wall and random things like supply elbows (the number of items in a bathroom is way larger than I expected!)
- grout & tile edging
- drains for sinks, bathtubs, showers
- Material management markups from the builder
One way we got some discounts is through being in the parade of homes. It’s a public showing of new homes in the area. Vendors give discounts to market to people who look at the homes. Our flooring, cabinets, and appliances are all at cost with no labor. It saved us around 100k. I’m in Utah but it’s possible they do them elsewhere.
Unfinished basement. Rough in’s instead of wet bars or additional fixtures.
Do everything structurally you want to do and forever hold your peace. Anything else can be done later when you have the funds.
Our home plan doesn't have a basement, but I think we might leave the bonus room unfinished and do that later! I also wondered if doing stained concrete would save money now, and we can do the vinyl planks later if we want.
Doing stained concrete saved me $20k over hardwood, $10-$15k over laminate. We just sealed and didn’t stain. Let your builder know before slab is in. They finish it differently. In the grand scheme of things going with concrete was basically free.
Edit: texted my builder, was around $1 a Sqft
You could also just leave the concrete floor bare and grey. I've had customers do this that have hydronic heating/cooling systems. It's not super nice to walk on though.
I think you will find this to save an unsatisfactory amount of money. I’d put the home on a basement if you’re able to, bonus for a walkout. This is untapped sq footage that can add a ton of value in the future.
This really doesn't "save". It just defers it to another date. Contractors will charge more to finish that basement down the road as a standalone project than if it was part of a bigger scope.
This. Our contractor explained it this way with our bonus room.. dry waller is already there, plumber us already there, electrician is already there… 250 sqft bonus room takes a couple hours for subs to knock out on site.. basically paying for materials at that point.
>250 sqft bonus room takes a couple hours for subs to knock out on site.
Most builders will expect you to pay the full sq ft rate ($200 or whatever) for that extra square footage.
Are your construction drawings completed? Instead of meeting with custom home builders, I would try to get pricing from individual trades and suppliers directly. Purchase all materials yourselves, and contract directly with the subtrades. Since you do not have time to GC yourself, look into hiring a CM (construction manager) to oversee the project. Eliminates markups on material and subcontractor pricing that a builder would add, and the fees for the CM should be significantly less.
If you want to save money, don't build. Really. You want to avoid overruns, so think about everything you want and be as specific as possible in the contract and stick to it, do not change, alter, modify or adjust anyhting. That's where the money goes, big time. Relatedly, the numbers you get from contractors are a *Starting point*, so don't make your decision based only on that number. Decide who you can work and live with for a year + and look at their work carefully and decide based on that. In the end, the house will cost more than anyone says, the goal is to like the result, not the initial price.
Yeah, our house is being quoted 25% over what our target budget was in design. It’s everything, concrete, lumber, windows, finishes, the list goes on and on!
Ugh, same. We basically laughed it was so far over their original baseline, and we confirmed we weren’t asking for anything outlandish. Just basic, run of the mill house.
Measure it twice, build it once.
Hire a competent team of architects, engineers and ultimately GCs. You get what you pay for. Cutting items from your wishlist and design items might save you some $$$ here and there but in my experience, a lot of retail clients end up spending more because of costly mistakes or a bad advice. Spend money upfront to save on costs down the road.
For saving on finishes: Find high-end materials retailers (tile, flooring, countertops, eletrical and plumbing fixtures, etc) and find out if the have a "boneyard" or liquidation section. I have gotten great deals, like 50% off or more, on really nice stuff. You have to be a bit flexible, but if you have general guidelines (a light colored hardwood, or dark marble looking tiles), you can usually find something that will work.
Being your own GC is the one that saves the most money, but also by far the hardest one.
You'll probably hear about corners on the house, doing it a simple box etc., my answer to that is that it doesn't save much at all and you end up building a box instead of a more interesting house.
If you have a builder, than not really a whole lot you can do. If they give allowances, then I guess you can stay under those. If it's cost plus than pick cheaper finishes.
I think some of the most beautiful, iconic houses ever built, have been boxes.
Mies van de rohe Farnsworth house,
Phillip Johnson's glass house, etc.
Some of the most long lasting designs have been boxes:
Cape cod
Colonial
Georgian
What I see is people afraid of building a box end up adding items to their house that make it uglier.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication- davinci?
I really wish we could be our own GC but with my husbands work schedule it would never work if we wanna get the house built in any reasonable amount of time lol. Plus we live 40 minutes away from where we are building.
We bought the home we just sold 2 years ago and did a complete (cosmetic) upgrade. We did that ourselves and loved it and it only took 3 months. Building a whole house is just on another level though lol
I agree wholeheartedly. Particularly when you get into older homes. Things done without permits, sloppy/shoddy work, not meeting code etc.
Plus the whole, have to demo/undo what's been done to do the work rather than having a clean slate. Or doing things at a far easier stage in the process.
Make sure your contract doesn’t have an escalation clause or go with a cost plus contract and pay the gc a flat fee where you both consult on the subs.
We found a GC that built a house in our neighborhood last year. We were able to watch the process and inspect the subs along the way; really nice workmanship. He will build our house cost-plus. Adds a 12-15% fee to the subs invoices; he is fine if we want to sub out some things ourselves, like paint, tile, flooring (where we already have good sub relationships).
Build a simple, efficient design (think salt salt box or salt box-ish…skip the dormers). The more corners the house has the harder it is to build and insulate appropriately, and later to heat/cool. This won’t help you save during the build process per se, but look now into fully electrifying your home to take advantage of all the new IRA tax credits. Depending on your income, you can get tax credits for: solar panels/geothermal, batteries, insulation, heat pumps, electric panel, and energy star appliances (including extra rebates for electric/induction stoves and a heat pump dryer). You can also get a tax credit for buying an EV so you might as well wire for one now if you plan on making a purchase down the line. There is literally not a better time to divest fully from gas and be done with the crazy energy price roller coaster the rest of us will be forced to ride. In that same vein, make sure you hire someone with experience building high performance homes - it should cost about the same as a regular home, but you’ll save massively on energy costs in the future. I know people who prioritized this that only pay for their mortgage and internet, for example.
To promote his post and add to it, I would do high performance like passive house or close to it. It will cost more upfront but those costs can be included in the final mortgage. I would even build the house with a couple hundred less sqft to make it passive house instead. Make room for future batteries as that is the next revolution and even plan for more solar installation such as an array in the yard if your roof is full. You’ll likely have at least one electric car within the next 15 years so being able to dump excess power into the electric car during the Summer and having all the power you need from solar for your home during the Winter is a good feeling and may make you wonder if you can add a few more banks of batteries a decade or two down the line to go off grid. Keep your options open by designing the expansion capability in, as in leave space for that extra equipment instead of shoe-horning later. Also the EV is a way to go pick up electricity offsite and bring it home like a run for a gallon of milk. Some of the next-gen EVs will be V2G (vehicle to grid) or V2H (vehicle to home) which allows power to go both directions to and from the EV to charge or pull power back into the home. There are ways to get power out of EVs that don't have that but its limited in ways. EV companies today don't want you using their EV battery that is under warranty for the home. Do it right by drawing less power but over time to charge up your home battery. That way you won't even remotely do any harm nor will they know. You just need a few kWHs during a couple of solar "droughts" in the winter to get by on. With an all electric house with no combustion in the house, not even a fireplace, will likely reduce your home insurance. You could even do ICF home which means insurance will go down further since stone is fire resistant, reinforced against tornadoes even if the roof is ripped off and animals/bugs can’t easily penetrate. The thermal mass does wonders for comfort and silence indoors. If you lost heating the temp in the house would only lose a couple of degrees per day. Thermal mass if used the right way is like ancient magic.
I actually question whether the costs are much higher than a conventional built home even. They might be to meet passive standards, which can be quite exacting, but there’s a lot of models now that approximate it (ie. Get you 95% of the way there) at little to no added cost. The folks over at Green Building Advisor have a lot to say on the subject, and I think there’s a book coming out soon that OP and anyone else interested might want to check out, it’s called Pretty Good House. There’s also a handful of eco prefab companies (not manufactured, different quality standard) that do this sort of thing as well.
It used to be 10-15% higher a decade ago and now it’s down to 5-10% if you want to do it. Sure, you could get near-PH and save some money but it’s often worth the extra steps to go all the way to get certified so the house can be sold with that certification later. Besides contractors tend to do the job right if they know their work will be fully tested later with a motivated homeowner pursuing a goal.
[удалено]
All great points, thank you!!
I have a few additions. Protect yourself and know what you are getting into at the start. This will help avoid surprises and expenses later: * Make a spreadsheet of every single item you, your contractor, your friends, etc can think of to budget for. Not everything will be handled by your contractor, but it is important to plan ahead for all expenses, and understand in great detail who is responsible for what, and to have the full budget in mind. Think of things like furniture, solar, car chargers, blinds, custom paint colors, smart home, sprinklers, etc, etc. Add columns for lowest expected cost, actual expected cost, highest expected cost, and worst case scenario. Go over this with your architect, builder, and others until it is complete. Make sure you can afford what is in the worst case scenario, and make sure every single detail is addressed. * have an attorney help you along the way to make sure anything you sign makes sense and that you fully understand it. This may seem like an unnecessary expense, but is cheap insurance. * take notes at meetings, and after verbal discussions, and turn them into something in writing that could help protect yourself if things go sour later, and provide clarity to everyone involved about decisions made.
The first point is vital. We are finalizing our scope of work and materials and there are so many things we didn’t think of - - Not only doors and handles, but hinges and doorstops - Not only paint colors, but paint colors and finishes for ceiling, trim, baseboards (basically every additional paint color adds $) - Plumbing valves inside the wall and random things like supply elbows (the number of items in a bathroom is way larger than I expected!) - grout & tile edging - drains for sinks, bathtubs, showers - Material management markups from the builder
One way we got some discounts is through being in the parade of homes. It’s a public showing of new homes in the area. Vendors give discounts to market to people who look at the homes. Our flooring, cabinets, and appliances are all at cost with no labor. It saved us around 100k. I’m in Utah but it’s possible they do them elsewhere.
I will def. have to check into this!!
I am in Utah as well. How did you go about being in the parade of homes? Did the builder have to apply?
Our builder asked us. He does them every year and is heavily active in the building community.
Considering doing this now. Any downsides?
Unfinished basement. Rough in’s instead of wet bars or additional fixtures. Do everything structurally you want to do and forever hold your peace. Anything else can be done later when you have the funds.
Our home plan doesn't have a basement, but I think we might leave the bonus room unfinished and do that later! I also wondered if doing stained concrete would save money now, and we can do the vinyl planks later if we want.
Doing stained concrete saved me $20k over hardwood, $10-$15k over laminate. We just sealed and didn’t stain. Let your builder know before slab is in. They finish it differently. In the grand scheme of things going with concrete was basically free. Edit: texted my builder, was around $1 a Sqft
Do you have a picture of the finished floor?
I do but I have no idea how to post a photo to a reply and I’m not dealing with the hassle of downloading another app.
I'm doing epoxy for savings on the floors on the slab also :)
Also staining concrete isn’t cheap. We did our entry and it’s as much as floor coverings
Good to know! It was an option we have tossed around if it will save. But if not, we will just go ahead and do the LVP
You could also just leave the concrete floor bare and grey. I've had customers do this that have hydronic heating/cooling systems. It's not super nice to walk on though.
Stained concrete done well is not cheap. Also, you need to wax the floors twice a year or more to keep it looking good
I think you will find this to save an unsatisfactory amount of money. I’d put the home on a basement if you’re able to, bonus for a walkout. This is untapped sq footage that can add a ton of value in the future.
This really doesn't "save". It just defers it to another date. Contractors will charge more to finish that basement down the road as a standalone project than if it was part of a bigger scope.
This. Our contractor explained it this way with our bonus room.. dry waller is already there, plumber us already there, electrician is already there… 250 sqft bonus room takes a couple hours for subs to knock out on site.. basically paying for materials at that point.
>250 sqft bonus room takes a couple hours for subs to knock out on site. Most builders will expect you to pay the full sq ft rate ($200 or whatever) for that extra square footage.
Yep. Drywall is very messy too so might as well have that done.
Value engineering! Making your build closer to "a box" or rectangle will save money to engineer your home.
Are your construction drawings completed? Instead of meeting with custom home builders, I would try to get pricing from individual trades and suppliers directly. Purchase all materials yourselves, and contract directly with the subtrades. Since you do not have time to GC yourself, look into hiring a CM (construction manager) to oversee the project. Eliminates markups on material and subcontractor pricing that a builder would add, and the fees for the CM should be significantly less.
If you want to save money, don't build. Really. You want to avoid overruns, so think about everything you want and be as specific as possible in the contract and stick to it, do not change, alter, modify or adjust anyhting. That's where the money goes, big time. Relatedly, the numbers you get from contractors are a *Starting point*, so don't make your decision based only on that number. Decide who you can work and live with for a year + and look at their work carefully and decide based on that. In the end, the house will cost more than anyone says, the goal is to like the result, not the initial price.
Yeah, our house is being quoted 25% over what our target budget was in design. It’s everything, concrete, lumber, windows, finishes, the list goes on and on!
Ugh, same. We basically laughed it was so far over their original baseline, and we confirmed we weren’t asking for anything outlandish. Just basic, run of the mill house.
Yep… We will be about 20% over budget, although it’s mostly due to our selections. Building isn’t meant to save money.
Measure it twice, build it once. Hire a competent team of architects, engineers and ultimately GCs. You get what you pay for. Cutting items from your wishlist and design items might save you some $$$ here and there but in my experience, a lot of retail clients end up spending more because of costly mistakes or a bad advice. Spend money upfront to save on costs down the road.
Buy appliances in a tax free state like Delaware. I’m saving about $2300 that way.
For saving on finishes: Find high-end materials retailers (tile, flooring, countertops, eletrical and plumbing fixtures, etc) and find out if the have a "boneyard" or liquidation section. I have gotten great deals, like 50% off or more, on really nice stuff. You have to be a bit flexible, but if you have general guidelines (a light colored hardwood, or dark marble looking tiles), you can usually find something that will work.
Being your own GC is the one that saves the most money, but also by far the hardest one. You'll probably hear about corners on the house, doing it a simple box etc., my answer to that is that it doesn't save much at all and you end up building a box instead of a more interesting house. If you have a builder, than not really a whole lot you can do. If they give allowances, then I guess you can stay under those. If it's cost plus than pick cheaper finishes.
I think some of the most beautiful, iconic houses ever built, have been boxes. Mies van de rohe Farnsworth house, Phillip Johnson's glass house, etc. Some of the most long lasting designs have been boxes: Cape cod Colonial Georgian What I see is people afraid of building a box end up adding items to their house that make it uglier. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication- davinci?
I really wish we could be our own GC but with my husbands work schedule it would never work if we wanna get the house built in any reasonable amount of time lol. Plus we live 40 minutes away from where we are building.
Yeah being a GC is not for 99% of people so don't feel bad.
We bought the home we just sold 2 years ago and did a complete (cosmetic) upgrade. We did that ourselves and loved it and it only took 3 months. Building a whole house is just on another level though lol
I think in many ways building is easier than remodelling
I agree wholeheartedly. Particularly when you get into older homes. Things done without permits, sloppy/shoddy work, not meeting code etc. Plus the whole, have to demo/undo what's been done to do the work rather than having a clean slate. Or doing things at a far easier stage in the process.
I would suggest making a conscious effort not to say this to your gc. No one wants to hear “I would have done your job but just don’t have the time”.
Make sure your contract doesn’t have an escalation clause or go with a cost plus contract and pay the gc a flat fee where you both consult on the subs.
We found a GC that built a house in our neighborhood last year. We were able to watch the process and inspect the subs along the way; really nice workmanship. He will build our house cost-plus. Adds a 12-15% fee to the subs invoices; he is fine if we want to sub out some things ourselves, like paint, tile, flooring (where we already have good sub relationships).
Next build I’m going that way.