Great forums with lots of info.  I want to do this right the first time. David in Haltom City, TX

Progress

Posted to Building-the-Dream-in-OC by Barbara in Gladstone, OR on 11/29/2007 11:23:35 AM

Since our last post we have come a long way in our planning. 

We spent a lot of research time over the summer going to home tours and open houses, refining our ideas for our 'dream home'.   We have been working with a great designer we found through mutual friends.  We started with the stock plan we liked and have modified it to suit our site, our family's needs and to incorporate the design changes that appeal to us.  It is now nearly unrecognizable as the original 'stock plan'!  So much for 'minor' changes. LOL!  We had hoped to keep the square footage down to about 3,200... it is now 3,550 but no way to cut without losing the things we love about the house and the rooms feel 'just right' for what we want. 

In the early fall we sold our home and moved into a rental house.  It was a difficult decision and transition, but now we are able to really focus our energy on the build.  Our site has been logged and is now ready for some grading and laying of rock so the big trucks won't get stuck. 

Our plans hopefully will be complete by the end of the year - we are in that final 'tweaking' stage.  We will apply for our permits in January or February and likely begin excavation in March.  It is all dependent on how much rain we are getting and what temps are doing.  We are feeling patient now, we'll see how antsy we get by Spring!  We will use the months between now and then for - more research!

We have been talking with a builder over the last several months.  It was our plan to use her services on a cost plus basis perhaps through drywall perhaps all the way through if the project went well and our budget held out.  She is very open to our involvement in the project and her way of doing business seemed to be in sync with ours.  Now we are finding that there were some misunderstandings and we are not sure where things will end up. 

We are fortunate to have friends who are currently almost to drywall on their house (the contractor I mentioned before) and they have been very helpful with information and costs.  It looks like our rough estimates are realistic and they have shared a list of subs to solicit bids from once our plans are complete.  Even if we go ahead with the  GC we will  get some of our own bids.  We have spent a lot of time planning and really fine-tuning the design and deciding the things we want in our home.  Once we have the final plans we will put more research into our selections and work on our specifications.

We have a 'to do' list of a site survey, some questions for the electric company and of course getting the plans completed. 

For what it is worth for those of you trying to project a budget we have found that the calculator at building-cost.net is pretty close to actual numbers for our area.  The caveat is - if you are going to go complicated with your design, or high-end with your finishes it will be more and you need to factor that in.  But the calculator will give you a good basic starting point for how much you could build for if your choices were mid-range.  The line items might not match exactly but the bottom line seems to run pretty close.  Once we have some actual bids I will share all my budget information. I have always appreciated seeing those numbers and I know it helps in your planning.

Happy Holidays!

*Plans* have changed...

Posted to Building-the-Dream-in-OC by Barbara in Gladstone, OR on 6/8/2007

Well, after letting go of the other design we really liked we started looking at our site and goals with fresh eyes and have changed direction in a major way.  Instead of building up we are going to do a daylight basement plan.  There is a stock plan that we really love that would work with very minor modifications.  Our main reasons for changing are - the setback requirements push our house out over the edge of the slope which means we would have a 'basement' whether it was on plan or not, we can put more rooms on the view side of the house, we can raise ceilings on the main floor and very important - the overall cost of construction should be lower with a finished basement vs a second story.  The new plan incorporates alot of things we liked about the other plan and fixes some things we didn't. 

Our current tasks are going back to the architect and discussing our new plan to see if it will work with our modifications or if we will still need a custom design and getting our setback variance so that we have flexibility in design and siting our home.  Once those things are decided we are going to begin some site prep.  We need to take down some trees and clean up some brush. 

I have started a binder and a notebook detailing all of our research, notes and questions.  We also have a growing file of pictures on our computer detailing great ideas we have seen.  I have put together a rough budget for the home that we are looking at.  Started with the calculator at building-cost.net and refined and added based on research of local costs, material choices and the budgets of others. 

Our good news this week is that the rental house has a sale pending and we will hopefully close on that soon and have the start of our new house fund!

Busy Month

Posted to Building-the-Dream-in-OC by Barbara in Gladstone, OR on 5/18/2007

Well in the last month we have gained enough information to realize we are likely going with a custom design.  We have some setback issues that will require a variance if we go with the plan we like and even then it is pushing the house too far off the edge of our slope for what we want.  We also have an electrical transformer box to work around.  We had the Power Company out to check into what it would take to move the box.  We are looking at $2k-$4k for that depending on which way we decide to go.

After looking at *thousands* of stock plans we realize that when we have constraints of site, budget, family style and square footage we need to design to fit all of those things and that a stock plan is just not going to work.  If we were building on a flat lot or in a subdivision it would be easier I think.  It could be frustrating if time were an issue, I am glad we have the time to really consider our options and be very thoughtful about the end result.  I have gotten 'attached' to a couple of plans but now am realizing that they won't work but we can still take the things we loved about them and incorporate those features into our home.  In addition we are leaning towards an architect that I spoke with because he is very practical and a big proponent of 'value engineering' in his plans. 

I have been refining our budget by comparing to a friend's budget, using various online tools, and comparing our line item costs to the costs others have paid for similar work.  When I was at our County Building Department I asked about costs and they told me to use $94 psf as an average.  I noticed that is pretty close to the permit valuations but that the value the builder puts on their permits is quite a bit lower.  No one can quite give me an answer on that one...  I have also talked to a builder I met at a home just finished in a subdivision and he shared some cost information with me.  He was also helpful in making some suggestions on how to save on excavation costs one of my big concerns as it is an 'unknown' and difficult to estimate.  I contacted the builder of the spec home that Eric and I really liked.  He was friendly and 'ballparked' me a cost of $470k for building the  home on our property.  That would be about $127 psf.  On the county permit the house valuation is about $93 psf and his valuation was about $70 psf.  Eric's opinion was that he was just throwing that number out there as his 'wouldn't that be great if they actually went for it' number.  I agree, he was likely just feeling out where we were budget wise. 

In order to further refine our budget and get some more information Eric and I met with a builder yesterday.  We really like her.  She is someone that I met through work and we have visited her spec houses.  We laid out our goals and our philosophy on the process and why we were considering GC'ing ourselves.  She got it and encouraged us to make our own decision.  She also is open to working with us on a 'customized' basis that would allow us to use her services in the areas where we need them.  We would approach the services of a builder just like any other 'line item' on our budget.  Asking ourselves how much we are willing to pay, what services we would need in return and how that choice would fit into our overall budget and project.  The good news is that she felt we were on track with our project.  We talked about the type of home we were thinking of, the square footage, style, and finishes.  We shared a preliminary budget with line item costs based on my research and she felt it was conservative (meaning my projected costs were higher than what she would expect) and that we will be able to build the home we want on our budget.  Eric is feeling like we should have some help on this project and that perhaps we could go it on our own 'next time'-I can't even think about a next time right now!

Our tenants moved out of the rental house and I have been putting in LONG days cleaning and painting and fixing up the house.  Eric has been there for all of his days off as well.  We are planning to get the house on the market this weekend and hoping for a quick sale.  Once we have that out of the way we will be able to move forward on our building project.  We will likely go through the setback variance procedure just to have more flexibility in siting our home.  We are planning on having an excavator and foundation contractor out to our site to give us some ideas on what might work best from their point of view.  Once we have a basic idea of the 'footprint' we will proceed with layout and design.  The more information we can bring to the architect the more we will save because the initial work and schematics can be time consuming and therefore costly.  Before the architect drafts our initial plan we want him to visit our site to really get a feel for it and perhaps he will suggest things we have not even thought of.

Another area of research has been into farm defferral for our acreage.  Our property taxes will be high and if we have some sort of farm income we can get a break on that.  Our kids have lots of ideas, sheep, goats etc....of  course we know who will end up taking care of all of those animals and we will have to sell them at some point so there will be tears...MINE!

Wish us Luck on the Sale of our Rental!

About 20-30 hours

Posted to Building-the-Dream-in-OC by Barbara in Gladstone, OR on 4/19/2007

In the last couple of weeks we have gotten alot of good information to help with our planning and decision making. I estimate about 20-30 hours of planning time.  Of course the usual-reading and internet research as well as...

 I spoke again with the woman who has just completed her home last year and she is going to share her budget with me.  This should be very helpful as her home has a similar footprint and style to ours. 

 I went to the office of a local architect and went over the plan we are interested in and talked about our modifications.  He gave me a 'ballpark' of $3-5000 to draw up our plans or around $10k if we start from scratch and have him custom design a home for us.  He also discussed being our own GC - which he seemed supportive of and he has several clients who have done this- as well as giving me the business cards of 2 builders who he felt would be open to being hired as consultants for a fee if we needed that.  I want to go to one more architectural firm and also a few design/drafting firms for more information and estimates. 

I was able to go to Bellvue, WA and take the "Avoiding Glitches and Saving Money by better Managing your Home Building project" offered by Tom Landis of the Owner Builder site.  It was a great class, Tom offered great information and a new perspective on certain things.  He is also willing to get phone calls and emails if we have questions. 

Eric and I also walked through 'our house' again.  A builder is building it as a spec house just down the road from our property.  To be honest there is a little tension there...he is a 'glass half empty' and I am a 'glass half full' person.  I felt he was seeing only the negative and he felt I wasn't seeing his side.  I think part of the problem as this home is for our whole family but I am the one putting in SO MUCH TIME that I feel like after looking at literally thousands of plans...no stock plan is perfect for us and this one in my opinion comes as close as possible with a few modifications.  So he agreed to make a list of things he would like to see done differently and we will incorporate those changes into the home.  If it can't be done-we may have to have custom plans.  In the end-we both agreed that it is a great house and I see that his pointing out the negatives was his way of 'fine tuning' it.  I can see how this process can be tough on a marriage and I really want to do our best to work with each other not against. 

It is a great thing for us to be able to walk through the floorplan in real life and feel the rooms as they actually are.  When the house is complete, if it is not sold yet, I would like to take our children to it and see what it feels like with our whole family running around.  Eric thinks we should contact the builder and see if he will share any information about building the house and anything he would do differently or problems he may have run into.  I think this sounds good in theory but I'm not sure how to actually approach the builder and if he would have any interest or desire in sharing that information. 

I spoke with our friends who are about to GC their 4th home.  He owns a concrete flatwork company and has alot of contacts in our area for subs.  We discussed building in the area and costs - he feels I should budget $110 psf.  Ouch.  That is quite a difference from $100.  I will let my budget planning and bids guide me there.  He is also willing to get together and look at the study plans we have and perhaps being our 'keep us out of trouble' mentor.  We may be able to pay him a fee and also trade some service- as a designer I helped choose the finish materials for their last home.

We gave our tenants their notice and will have that house up for sale in 4-6 weeks.  Lets hope the market stays strong here and that we get a good price!

All in all, we are plugging along quite well and I am glad we have the time to do it this way.  I would hate to be under a deadline to accomplish all of this research.

More Planning..

Posted to Building-the-Dream-in-OC by Barbara in Gladstone, OR on 4/4/2007

Well, the last couple weeks have been more reading books from the Library and more research.  I have been going out to new construction sites and going through the homes.  I compare the level of finish, the lot cost and the cost valuation on the building permit and compare this to the asking price for the home.  It looks like the spec homes similar in size and quality to what we are looking at building can be built from $87-$102 per SF.  I know of a couple of people who have done it for less but I don't want to count on that.  I have also noticed that once a home is over 3000 sf the cost per square foot tends to go down slightly, good news for us as our house will most likely be over 3000 sf.

I have also been measuring...everything.  Trying to get a feel for room sizes, exactly how I would like our kitchen laid out, what things I like best about homes we have lived in, stayed in visited or toured.  In our house plan there are rooms that are 12'2" wide-which is ok for space but a waste for things like carpet -we would have to go to a wider width and have quite a bit of waste.  The kitchen would work better with one wall being 6" longer, reworking the bathroom layout, adding a small amount of space to create much better storage.  Really trying to fine-tune the plan before I do a final drawing to take to a designer.  Since we would like to change the front elevation I have also been finding pictures of homes that are closer to what we are looking for, but somewhat compatible with our design and dimensions.

Eric is not sure we should be taking this on completely by ourselves.  Because our land is not 'easy' ie: sloped & rocky the excavation could be tricky and the foundation expensive. He also feels that since we are not looking to build a small, simple home we could use some guidance. So,  we have met with a couple of builders.  One we met through a local home show and another I met through work.  At the first meeting we toured 2 homes - one just completed and one under construction.  This builder was very helpful, came out to our property and looked it over and gave us some advice.  I was upfront about my desire to do this myself but that I was also willing to look at some type of 'consulting/mentoring' arrangement if we found the right person and if that made Eric feel better.  As a 'ballpark' idea he mentioned a price of $115 per sf for the home we are thinking of.  While this is less than the 'retail' on some homes I've seen it didn't help alot as our plan has quite a bit of unfinished square footage and a large garage which would affect costs. In addition I am not looking for a 'turnkey' product - just want more control than that and more savings as well. The second builder has two spec homes on the market and one is just finished the other just about to be drywalled.  Really pretty homes, alot of attention to detail and well priced.  We have not talked with her about our project specifically but did get some general information about building locally and she is willing to have her excavator and foundation contractor look at our site.  

After meeting with the builders we started thinking "It would be nice to have some help with this and not be totally responsible..."  On the other hand I keep coming back to wanting to manage the project myself.  So, my plan is to continue with our planning steps and research and see where it leads us, after all that is what all this planning is for-to make educated decisions.  For now we are proceeding by planning to sell our rental house soon, likely next month. 

I have also signed up for an Owner Builder Class offered through a community college.  We have a couple of people on our list to contact and discuss owner-building.  One is a couple who have done it twice and another is a friend who is in construction and has been the GC on 3 of his own homes.

I am thinking that with everything we have done and all that is to come we will exceed the 1000 hours...feels like we all ready have!

Good News!

Posted to Building-the-Dream-in-OC by Barbara in Gladstone, OR on 3/14/2007

I finished my tasks and have good news to share!  Our rental house and personal residence should net us enough to be able to build the home we want-we most likely will end up with a mortgage but it will be one we are comfortable with.  I met with a woman who is a friend of a friend, she owner-built her home with fantastic results.  She had alot of good information to share and drumroll please-built for $65 a square foot -INCLUDING land!  I think she would be a great resource, so I am going to ask if I can post some of what she shared with me or if she would consider posting some info herself.  I feel more confident after talking with someone who has actually been through this process and she and I were actually looking at the same houseplan, and she had part of it incorporated into her design.  What a great opportunity it was to get to spend time with her and really 'pick her brain'.  Not to mention she is a great lady and alot of fun!

As for the business end of things, I talked to our county tax assessor so I would know what to budget for property taxes on a monthly basis.  Our property taxes are pretty high in Oregon but we will have a year's grace as we are assessed on value on Jan 1 so even if you break ground Jan 2 you will have a year of only tax on the bare land before they assess your new home.  If your home is partially complete they assess only on what you have completed.

At the county I found out that 1. Our 'replacement dwelling' permit is about $4000 less than a regular permit -great news and that our Septic is sufficient to handle the home we are planning.  My little girl was so sweet to the lady behind the desk that the fee to have it checked dropped from $325 to $100. :)  Not absolutely certain about that but I am a proud Mom after all!

Eric and I did another walk through the home we are thinking of building.  It is in the finish stage and is beautiful.  I used the Building Cost Net website to cost the home as built and the estimate from them agrees almost exactly with the cost shown by the builder on the permit - I learned from this site that most counties have a website where you can look up permits by address and that has been very helpful in researching building costs in our area.

So, I am going to try again and attach the PDF file of the plan we are looking at...we would like the front elevation to be more 'craftsman' and that is what the home we saw looked like -except we would also like larger windows in the front bedrooms so the dormers would have to be changed.  There are several versions of this particular plan, it is a Mascord design #W22120.  We are planning on using this plan as a starting point and working with a designer to get it just right for us, and focusing on making the design as cost effective as possible.  If anyone has any help in that area please feel free to comment. 

We have a copy of dimensioned floor plans with some details and the elevations, I understand this should be enough to get bids from.  I would like to get some local bids so I know that our budget is in the right 'ball park' before we pursue having these plans drawn up.  After reading through this site it seems that getting people to bid on a 'maybe' project can be tough, but I am going to try anyway.  Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Our next step will be to get an excavator and foundation contractor to take a look at our building site and help us determine what we are looking at for that portion of our budget.  Because we have a sloped lot and alot of BIG rocks that cost could be substantial.

I have also read another book this week: What the "Experts" May Not Tell You About Building or Renovating Your Home, by Amy Johnston.  It is focused towards working with a builder, but she advocates so much owner involvment that it has alot of great information, I would recommend it.

It's been a very productive week planning wise!

Barbara

First Post - LONG! Getting the Backstory...

Posted to Building-the-Dream-in-OC by Barbara in Gladstone, OR on 3/6/2007

Hi,

This is my first post, I have read the book and have been reading through this site for about two weeks gathering information. 

My husband Eric and I have owned some acreage in Oregon City for about 13 years now. It is a beautiful treed, view lot and we envision our dream home there. When we purchased the property we put in the septic system - city water and power were already at the site. We sold our first home and moved a single wide mobile home onto the property.  We moved in with our baby daughter, and stayed for 2 years. It was our intent to live in the mobile and be on site to owner-build at that time-we even had plans drawn- but life had other plans for us. Due to tax laws at the time we had to reinvest our equity so we ended up renting out the mobile, buying a small house, remodeling it ourselves and eventually renting it out while we bought yet another fixer-upper and remodeled it and have lived here for the past 6 years.  We have also grown our family during this time and now have 3 children.    

We are now thinking of building as the possiblity of living in our dream home in the country-and if that doesn't work out the way we think-selling in 2 years and building or buying a home and investing the rest. 

While I have primarily been a 'stay at home Mom' since the children came along, managing our finances and our rentals has been my job too.  I have a degree in Interior Design-(my pre-Mom job) and went to real estate school and now work part time as an assitant to a realtor.  Being in these industries has given me alot of exposure to the construction industry and my husband and I are both Do it yourself types.  Eric has all the skills necessary to build a house himself. He has done every aspect of our remodels-if I could just clone him so he could also be at work, with me, with the kids, etc. So we plan to be the GC, and do work if our time and the situation allows. Our main motivations for owner building are having our house, our way-nicer than we could afford otherwise and preserving as much of our equity as possible by having the lowest mortgage possible.  We have worked very hard for this so far and I can't see someone else profiting to the extent of 35%. 

So, having said all that...we are in the information gathering, planning 'project feasibility stage'.  Eric attended the Owner Builder School of Oregon when we first purchased our property, I have read books and scoured the internet for information.  I went to a 'Homes Now' presentation years ago-they are no longer in business.  We recently went to a UBuild It presentation and had a meeting with a representative. Not for us I think.  I have done extensive research on new homes locally - what builders are building, how much it costs, what the lots cost, what the actual house cost to build etc.  Eric and I have toured new construction together talking about what we do and do not like.  I have spent MANY hours looking at plans, we narrowed it down to about 25, then about a dozen and then down to just a few.  We were lucky enough to find one that was a favorite under construction-toured it and it is definately our 'starting place'.  I am going to try and post that plan and it will be interesting to see how close we end up to that when we finally build. We know we want a different elevation, and the 'attic' area needs to be more usable.  Our old plan doesn't work for us now-so  all our detours were for the best.  We are also planning what our budget will be, we will sell our rental house and our current residence.We are not looking forward to the mobile home with 3 kids-but if it gets us our dream home it will be worth it. 

Our nexts steps are:

1. I am going to meet with a couple of people (friends of a friend) who have owner-built.

 2. Take a trip to the county to gather information on replacing the mobile home with a permanent residence and clear up as many questions as we can think of about the process and fees involved, also verify that our septic as put in will be sufficient for our planned home.

3. Getting price opinions on our two homes for sale to forecast our net equity which will determine our budget.

If you have read this far, thanks for sticking with it! 

Barbara

Jeff in Provo, UT 125 forum posts and 1 journal entry and 196 interview answers Send Private Message 3/14/2007

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