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I find the majority of new houses to be very ugly and I have been wondering lately how much it is to build a custom house vs purchasing a generic track house.
That depends on where you live, the type of house you're looking to build, and the contractor you hire. But typically speaking, yes, building a custom house is far more expensive.
A lot of builders just build the same basic box over and over again. They may look a lil different but they are the same under the skin. Good reasons for it. They get it down to a method and that is cheaper. Plus the workers get used to doing it the same, that is faster.
Custom usually means maybe different materials, different supplies, a lot of different things. Yep, expect to pay a lot more.
You can customize the basic box without adding a whole lot more to the price. Got to do it while in the planning stages tho. Once construction starts it is a change order and that usually is Big Bucks.
It doesn't have to cost a lot more. You can go two routes, you can be the builder yourself, hiring the subcontractors directly which will give you a real hand-on experience of building your house. In which case you can save substantial amounts of money (my brother and my parents both did this, my brother saved about $80,000 on his house, my parents about $45,000.) Or you can hire a good builder who does custom homes and pay him (I have a friend who's a builder and his standard markup is 15% for materials and labor) for his expertise and supervision. Since the housing market is taking such a beating, this is an excellent time to try to custom-build a house.
It doesn't have to cost a lot more. You can go two routes, you can be the builder yourself, hiring the subcontractors directly which will give you a real hand-on experience of building your house. In which case you can save substantial amounts of money (my brother and my parents both did this, my brother saved about $80,000 on his house, my parents about $45,000.) Or you can hire a good builder who does custom homes and pay him (I have a friend who's a builder and his standard markup is 15% for materials and labor) for his expertise and supervision. Since the housing market is taking such a beating, this is an excellent time to try to custom-build a house.
you have to be very very carefully doing the building yourself. You should have knowledge in construction to avoid being ripped off.
I design custom homes day in and day out. They generally are more expensive than the spec stuff coming from large builders. But the benefit is
1 on 1 meetings with the designer and the builder and you get to build a good relationship with both. You will generally get a better quality build (with the right builder of course) and you will know exactly what goes into the house, you will choose every single detail of the house down to the faucets, not from just a little list. Any production piece.
What happens when doing a design that makes it spiral out of control and cost?
Well, we will get maybe four of five contracts a year with clients that have a simple house idea in mind. They start the design process, and decide they want to move a wall 6", then they want to move this and that, they send in changes daily. Then after engineering they decide to move some stuff some more. Well. its not as easy to move a wall 6" every single day as some think, especially after engineering. The costs then spiral out of control. Or the client makes things bigger and bigger so when the house is ready to build. They have made it so large they can no longer afford it.
My best bet, if you go this route. Find a good designer, and a good builder. Don't do many changes after the preliminary design is done. Keep the cost of your materials down, IE go with hollow core doors instead of solid mahogany lol. and keep changes to a minimum after engineering. Don't do any weird designs with the house. Remember you might have to or want to sell someday. Listen to the advice of your Designer, we do this for a living and know what can help / hurt the house. and for the sake of all sanity, stay away from the 40.00 "design" software from computer stores, they stink, and usually just give us designers problems when trying to recreate any design.
Another thing you can do, is drive around sub-divisions. Find what you like, and take pictures. Find out what the items that make the thing you like are, and the cost of that particular material. and if there is a material that is lower price you can use in place of the expensive stuff.
you can get exactly what you want, but there is a price to it.
If you have any more questions, feel free to send me a PM, and ill do my best to help ya out.
Helikon Design has nice round designs that assemble quickly and are reasonably priced. You buy the kit from Helikon Design and get local labor and trades to assemble with Helikon's supervision. THE ROUND HELIX STRUCTURE ENERGY EFFICIENT HOME
I think you missed the point of the OP. If the majority of new homes are "ugly"- Does that make round beautiful?
I think of custom as "built for me"(design, layout, features, materials, etc.). I'm not settling for the masses that are on the ground.
Humanoid- there are some good points made. All-in-all the answer is yes- how much more depends on you.
you have to be very very carefully doing the building yourself. You should have knowledge in construction to avoid being ripped off.
I design custom homes day in and day out. They generally are more expensive than the spec stuff coming from large builders. But the benefit is
1 on 1 meetings with the designer and the builder and you get to build a good relationship with both. You will generally get a better quality build (with the right builder of course) and you will know exactly what goes into the house, you will choose every single detail of the house down to the faucets, not from just a little list. Any production piece.
What happens when doing a design that makes it spiral out of control and cost?
Well, we will get maybe four of five contracts a year with clients that have a simple house idea in mind. They start the design process, and decide they want to move a wall 6", then they want to move this and that, they send in changes daily. Then after engineering they decide to move some stuff some more. Well. its not as easy to move a wall 6" every single day as some think, especially after engineering. The costs then spiral out of control. Or the client makes things bigger and bigger so when the house is ready to build. They have made it so large they can no longer afford it.
My best bet, if you go this route. Find a good designer, and a good builder. Don't do many changes after the preliminary design is done. Keep the cost of your materials down, IE go with hollow core doors instead of solid mahogany lol. and keep changes to a minimum after engineering. Don't do any weird designs with the house. Remember you might have to or want to sell someday. Listen to the advice of your Designer, we do this for a living and know what can help / hurt the house. and for the sake of all sanity, stay away from the 40.00 "design" software from computer stores, they stink, and usually just give us designers problems when trying to recreate any design.
Another thing you can do, is drive around sub-divisions. Find what you like, and take pictures. Find out what the items that make the thing you like are, and the cost of that particular material. and if there is a material that is lower price you can use in place of the expensive stuff.
you can get exactly what you want, but there is a price to it.
If you have any more questions, feel free to send me a PM, and ill do my best to help ya out.
No freaking way.... I want my solid mahogany doors.... actually I change my mind, I want hand carved doors $1k a piece WOOT!
Last edited by evilnewbie; 11-08-2007 at 02:28 PM..
My brother and his wife built a custom home in the Dallas area a few years back, they adore it. The total was around $440,000 which I don't consider terrible considering the materials they picked out (wood floors, granite countertops, marble bath, etc). If you can afford to build a custom home, I'd say go for it but make sure you know what you're going to get into first before taking the plunge. The builder my brother used estimated the total cost to be right at $400K but somehow it went $40K over budget; NEVER trust estimates.
Good luck.
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All depends on what you mean by custom.....
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