Tips for Building a New Home

[Cloneon]

It all ends with the sound of a toilet flushing. I'm a builder. Material costs are getting out of hand. Try to find skilled labor these days, and if you do somebody that will actually work. I'm not building in Iowa and not sure what the labor market's like there now, but pick up some Spanish. Honestly, would rather work with a group of Hispanics as I would white folks these days. What's going on people? What happened to moral character? Spend have my time dealing with problems. Theft, lies, laziness, intentional sabotage..freaking sick trying to get anything done. Learned to back off and not take anything on I can't do myself. I honestly wouldn't build new. Find a fixer upper. You're still going to get nailed in this market, but you're looking for a headache it you want to throw something new up right now.

I couldn't agree more. The work ethic has tanked. And those that are left are few and far between. And whether you like it or not, we all are subjected to inflation and degrading product quality. Heck, I found myself doing a detached office 100% myself. Design, engineering, purchasing, and building from scratch. If I'd hired someone, it would've costed $50k just for the labor, would most certainly have been delayed, and built poorly. My passion has been modular residential construction since as far back as my Architecture degree at Iowa State in 1982. Yet, the industry has been mired in restricted innovation, ridiculous government intervention, lack of health concerns, and poor quality. As with so much in life, something is going to eventually give. Not sure what. But, something.

 

[flycy]

Don't do Anderson. Wow, I just had Renewal by Anderson over to give a quote for replacing up to 8 of our windows (4 need to be replaced for sure) and while they have their own crews the cost is absurd. They have to install the windows for warranty and that's fine. If my house had hardy board siding and not 20 year old vinyl and 16' off the ground I'd be doing the the windows myself. I have a table saw, miter saw, hand saw, and finish nailer but the salesman claimed they do the trim around the windows (which are currently just drywall) and the cost for the 8 windows was $22,000! Are you kidding me? I kept a straight face when he told me that. It was $9,000 for the 4 bedroom windows if we just did those. They were the plainest of windows they offered. $2,250 per window? Get out of here. At that total cost its pretty much 1/8 of what we paid for our home in 2015. I took it that while their product is nice, they're selling to people who have no clue about window installation and no clue as to how much it should cost to replace windows. We went through this once before with Bath Fitters. We have installed a 3/4 bath in our basement at our first home. It was from start to finish, nothing was stubbed previously and cost us around $3,000. We did nearly all the work ourselves. Bath Fitter wanted $6,000 for the tub overlay and the new surround. Lol, seriously? We could have gutting main floor bath to the studs and sub-flooring, put in mid-level finishes and still be ahead at least, at least $1,000 from that quote.

Yeah about 5 years ago, Anderson wanted well over 25K to put vinyl windows on just the back side of a house I had. I had Pella do it for 8-9K for a comparable product and decided to do 2 large basement windows (ground level so easy) myself with Pella from Menards/Home Depot for a few hundred.

 

[Bipolarcy]

My wife and I are planning to build a new home and are looking for advice to save money on this process. So many new builds in Iowa are going for $200/square foot and that is entirely out of our price range.

We don’t need/want anything fancy at all—-1500-1700 total square footage with 3BR, 2.5BA with 2 car garage, standard cabinets, and a partially finished basement. Any tips, tricks, things to keep in mind to cut costs?

I know the house description is vague, but we are in the beginning stages of this process and want to eliminate things from the get go if it’s going to jack up the price.

Yeah, I don't know if cutting costs is something you want to do in a home build. You'll just be paying for it later.

I always said if I was going to build a home, it would be a Doug Rye home. He's big on energy efficiency, things like heat pumps and a certain type of insulation that is both fire proof and bug resistant, and sealing and caulking all the seams so no critters can get in. He uses certain appliances, like geo thermal furnace, but only if they will save money in the long run and the house is big enough or small enough (I forget which it is) to warrant it. He also takes into consideration where you live, because geo thermal won't work everywhere,

 

[1100011CS]

Yeah, I don't know if cutting costs is something you want to do in a home build. You'll just be paying for it later.

I always said if I was going to build a home, it would be a Doug Rye home. He's big on energy efficiency, things like heat pumps and a certain type of insulation that is both fire proof and bug resistant, and sealing and caulking all the seams so no critters can get in. He uses certain appliances, like geo thermal furnace, but only if they will save money in the long run and the house is big enough or small enough (I forget which it is) to warrant it. He also takes into consideration where you live, because geo thermal won't work everywhere,

Hello Doug

 

[Bipolarcy]

Hello Doug

What an idiotic response.