7 Bad Reasons to Use Your Own Trade Partners: Part 1
Can my electrician friend and I moonlight the electrical when you build my house? Do you allow me to use some of my preferred subcontractors on my custom home build? These are common questions builders get. Bringing your own Trade Partners is...
8 Principles For a Successful Custom Home Building Project
Start With WHY. You may be finding yourself asking these questions: Why do you want to move out of your existing home? Why do you want a sustainable home? Why you aren’t buying or remodeling an existing home? Why should I start looking for a...
Can I Price My Custom Home by the Square Foot?
I need to start by qualifying these comments. The problems below are mostly unique to custom home building. Semi-custom and Production Home Builders, or “spec” builders are structured differently, and can often achieve higher accuracy with square...
How Hidden Site Costs Increase the Cost of your Home
An unfortunate reality is that many folks get blindsided with the actual cost of their home. We seem to think the only things that make a home costly to build are the flooring and countertop choices. In part 1 we looked at design, in this blog we’ll...
Is It Cheaper to Build a Custom Home or Remodel?
Recently I encountered an interesting study on the real cost of home ownership. I’ll look at the data below, but suffice to say I found it quite interesting, because it reminded me of the main reasons my wife Missy and I purchased our 1893 Victorian...
6 Surprising Factors That Blow the Budget, Plus 1 You Already Know
We all want to know how much to budget for our new home cost in West Michigan. We do our research on square foot costs, look at new homes for sale in our ideal neighborhood, and consider the additional cost of major items, like ICF walls. Yet an...
Design Your Home Right the First Time: A Better Process
In a recent blog post, I shared a horror story. It is a true story, and my heart hurts for the Johnsons.At the conclusion of the post, I wrote the following:How could the Johnsons have avoided this result?Briefly:· Assemble a design team first....
Avoid This 1 Mistake When Building a Custom Home
Writing a blog recently had me in an introspective mood. It got me thinking how our process has been shaped and honed not only to prevent mistakes, but ultimately with our clients’ best interest in mind. Let me begin with a story nobody wants to...
